WASHINGTON — For weeks, Democratic lawmakers have met with and mimicked figures they believe may offer them a path back to power in Washington: online influencers and content creators.

Hours before President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress this month, Senate Democrats huddled with a dozen online progressive personalities who have millions of followers. House Democrats were introduced, without staff, to 40 content creators who Democratic leaders said could help them grow their audience online.

An earlier tutorial session in February featured online personalities like the YouTube commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.

The result has been a burst of Democratic online content, including direct-to-camera explainers in parked cars, scripted vertical videos, podcast appearances and livestreams — some topping trending charts online, others drawing mockery from liberal allies and Republicans in Congress.

But while the Democratic Party is largely divided over the path forward after last year’s election losses, party leaders agree that, no matter the message, how they connect with voters in the digital media landscape will be key to a political comeback.

More than a dozen Democratic senators, asked about the party’s digital strategy, pointed to Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey as the architect of their new push.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth of Democratic senators now. They’re engaging in the tools and strategies necessary to elevate their voice in a new, changing media market, where legacy media is not the place that people get their news now,” Booker said. “We’re just weeks into this, but just by making key changes … we’re seeing a massive growth in engagement with the content that our senators are creating, and we’ve only just begun.”

Booker said he’s aiming for Democratic senators to double online engagement with their content over the next year — and early metrics have been noticeable. Democratic senators racked up more than 87 million views on content they published in response to Trump’s joint address to Congress, according to Booker’s office.

Not all of that online engagement is positive. After more than two dozen Democratic senators posted identical scripted videos knocking Trump’s speech, saying he should have addressed the cost of living and his support for billionaire adviser Elon Musk, conservatives mocked them as inauthentic and out of touch.

“They are all actors reading a script,” Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns.

There’s no doubt that Democrats are playing catch-up. Trump and his fellow Republicans built a digital operation that fed on bombast and celebrity, and it’s a strategy they’ve taken with them to the White House. Official government accounts are new filled with right-wing memes, cinematic videos and pugnacious statements.

The Democratic embrace of influencers has also yielded mixed early results. Democrats were ridiculed online after a food and wellness influencer who attended the House Democrats’ creators event created a “Choose Your Fighter” video collage of Democratic congresswomen for Women’s History Month.

The White House posted a video in response that read “America chose its fighters last November,” and the Pentagon, normally known for being studiously non-partisan, posted a video stating “We chose our fighters a long time ago.”

But Booker and other Democratic leaders don’t consider the sneers to be a downside. Missteps are to be expected, they say, but the path to Americans’ attention will require some discomfort from lawmakers.

“I do think that the caucus as a whole is trying to figure out how we show people that we are real people,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, one of the congresswomen featured in the viral “Fighter” video. Crockett, whose posts regularly garner millions of views online, said she was used to criticism for her often frank statements and was more interested in combating perceptions that Democrats are “elitist” or “robotic.”

“I didn’t like the jumping, I’m going to be honest, though,” Crockett added about the viral “Choose Your Fighter” video.

Democrats adopted a more combative stance online in recent weeks as Trump’s moves to slash the federal workforce drew protests from liberals and pushback at GOP town halls. Top Democratic digital operatives who worked for the 2024 presidential campaign of then-Vice President Kamala Harris have been in high demand, with many Democrats anticipating close 2026 races in which digital strategies may be key.

Some of the most prominent Democrats across the country have been engaging more in new media since the election. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has touted the party’s message on progressive podcasts over the last month, including from the comedian Jon Stewart and the progressive outlet MeidasTouch. Clips of those videos were also lampooned online but garnered millions of views.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028, has launched a podcast of his own on which he has welcomed close Trump allies like the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and former Trump aide Steve Bannon to discuss hot-button political topics.

“We want to make sure we hit the podcasters that normally don’t have Democrats on there,” said Rep. Derek Tran, a Democrat from a competitive California House district. “The ones that are more right-leaning or independent, and be able to address a crowd and an audience that’s not typical for the Democratic base.”

Some House Democrats have expressed frustration that the guidance from Democratic leaders about social media is too vague, while others grumble that leaders are too prescriptive in their approach to messaging on platforms they don’t intuitively understand. Meanwhile, Democratic strategists have cautioned lawmakers that garnering attention online is secondary to the goal of using social media as a tool in specific policy fights and campaigns.

“I think there’s a fine line before we’re being cringe and trying too hard and seeming too thirsty. I think the most important thing in any of this is being as authentic and genuine as we can be,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.

“When it comes to authenticity, it also means leaning into what makes each of us unique. Like many of my colleagues probably should not be doing ‘get ready with me’ videos. It would look super cringe. But I’m a 36-year-old woman, and I do my makeup all the time, and I watch a lot of makeup tutorial videos, so it makes sense for me to do it,” said Jacobs.

Some Democrats think that the party’s messaging strategy hinges as much on the messengers as the medium it’s communicated on.

“If you know how to talk to people, it doesn’t matter what medium is going to exist,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, a freshman Democratic senator from Arizona. “You could be the best freaking spokesperson in the world, but if you don’t know how to talk to working-class people, it doesn’t matter if you have the best TikTok following, it’s just not going to translate.”

NEW YORK — To billionaire Elon Musk and his cost-cutting team at the Department of Government Efficiency, Karen Ortiz may just be one of many faceless bureaucrats. But to some of her colleagues, she is giving a voice to those who feel they can’t speak out.

Ortiz is an administrative judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — the federal agency in charge of enforcing U.S. workplace anti-discrimination laws that has undergone tumultuous change since President Donald Trump took office. Like millions of other federal employees, Ortiz opened an ominous email on Jan. 28 titled “Fork in the Road” giving them the option to resign from their positions as part of the government’s cost-cutting measures directed by Trump and carried out by DOGE under Musk, an unelected official.

Her alarm grew when her supervisor directed administrative judges in her New York district office to pause all their current LGBTQ+ cases and send them to Washington for further review in order to comply with Trump’s executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two “immutable” sexes — male and female.

Ortiz decried management’s lack of action in response to the directive, which she said was antithetical to the EEOC’s mission, and called upon some 185 colleagues in an email to “resist” complying with “illegal mandates.” But that email was “mysteriously” deleted, she said.

The next day, after yet another frustrating “Fork in the Road” update, Ortiz decided to go big, emailing the EEOC’s acting chair Andrea Lucas directly and copying more than 1,000 colleagues with the subject line, “A Spoon is Better than a Fork.” In it, Ortiz questioned Lucas’s fitness to serve as acting chair, “much less hold a license to practice law.”

“I know I take a great personal risk in sending out this message. But, at the end of the day, my actions align with what the EEOC was charged with doing under the law,” Ortiz wrote. “I will not compromise my ethics and my duty to uphold the law. I will not cower to bullying and intimidation.”

Ortiz is just one person, but her email represents a larger pushback against the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to federal agencies amid an environment of confusion, anger and chaos. It is also Ortiz’s way of taking a stand against the leadership of a civil rights agency that last month moved to dismiss seven of its own cases representing transgender workers, marking a major departure from its prior interpretation of the law.

Right after sending her mass email, Ortiz said she received a few supportive responses from colleagues — and one calling her unprofessional. Within an hour, though, the message disappeared and she lost her ability to send any further emails.

But it still made it onto the internet. The email was recirculated on Bluesky and it received more than 10,000 “upvotes” on Reddit after someone posted it with the comment, “Wow I wish I had that courage.”

“AN AMERICAN HERO,” one Reddit user deemed Ortiz, a sentiment that was seconded by more than 2,000 upvoters. “Who is this freedom fighter bringing on the fire?” wrote another.

The EEOC did not feel the same way. The agency revoked her email privileges for about a week and issued her a written reprimand for “discourteous conduct.”

Contacted by The AP, a spokesperson for the EEOC said: “We will refrain from commenting on internal communications and personnel matters. However, we would note that the agency has a long-standing policy prohibiting unauthorized all-employee emails, and all employees were reminded of that policy recently.”

A month later, Ortiz has no regrets.

“It was not really planned out, it was just from the heart,” the 53-year-old told The Associated Press in an interview, adding that partisan politics have nothing to do with her objections and that the public deserves the EEOC’s protection, including transgender workers. “This is how I feel and I’m not pulling any punches. And I will stand by what I wrote every day of the week, all day on Sunday.”

Ortiz said she never intended for her email to go beyond the EEOC, describing it as a “love letter” to her colleagues. But, she added, “I hope that it lights a fire under people.”

Ortiz said she has received “a ton” of support privately in the month since sending her email, including a thank-you letter from a California retiree telling her to “keep the faith.” Open support among her EEOC colleagues beyond Reddit and Bluesky, however, has proven more elusive.

“I think people are just really scared,” she said.

William Resh, a University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy professor who studies how administrative structure and political environments affect civil servants, weighed in on why federal workers may choose to say nothing even if they feel their mission is being undermined.

“We can talk pie in the sky, mission orientation and all these other things. But at the end of the day, people have a paycheck to bring home, and food to put on a table and a rent to pay,” Resh said.

The more immediate danger, he said, is the threat to one’s livelihood, or inviting a manager’s ire.

“And so then that’s where you get this kind of muted response on behalf of federal employees, that you don’t see a lot of people speaking out within these positions because they don’t want to lose their job,” Resh said. “Who would?”

Richard LeClear, a U.S. Air Force veteran and EEOC staffer who is retiring early at 64 to avoid serving under the Trump administration, said Ortiz’s email was “spot on,” but added that other colleagues who agreed with her may fear speaking out themselves.

“Retaliation is a very real thing,” LeClear said.

Ortiz, who has been a federal employee for 14 years and at the EEOC for six, said she isn’t naive about the potential fallout. She has hired attorneys, and maintains that her actions are protected whistleblower activity. As of Friday, she still had a job but she is not a lifetime appointee and is aware that her health care, pension and source of income could all be at risk.

Ortiz is nonetheless steadfast: “If they fire me, I’ll find another avenue to do this kind of work, and I’ll be okay. They will have to physically march me out of the office.”

Many of Ortiz’s colleagues have children to support and protect, which puts them in a more difficult position than her to speak out, Ortiz acknowledged. She said her legal education and American citizenship also put her in a position to be able to make change.

Her parents, who came to the United States from Puerto Rico in the 1950s with limited English skills, ingrained in her the value of standing up for others. Their firsthand experience with the Civil Rights Movement, and her own experience growing up in mostly white spaces in Garden City on Long Island, primed Ortiz to defend herself and others.

“It’s in my DNA,” she said. “I will use every shred of privilege that I have to lean into this.”

Ortiz received her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, and her law degree at Fordham University. She knew she wanted to become a judge ever since her high school mock trial as a Supreme Court justice.

Civil rights has been a throughline in her career, and Ortiz said she was “super excited” when she landed her job at the EEOC.

“This is how I wanted to finish up my career,” she said. “We’ll see if that happens.”

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WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has paused offensive cyberoperations against Russia by U.S. Cyber Command, rolling back some efforts to contend with a key adversary even as national security experts call for the U.S. to expand those capabilities.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, on Monday confirmed the pause.

Hegseth’s decision does not affect cyberoperations conducted by other agencies, including the CIA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. But the Trump administration also has rolled back other efforts at the FBI and other agencies related to countering digital and cyber threats.

The Pentagon decision, which was first reported by The Record, comes as many national security and cybersecurity experts have urged greater investments in cyber defense and offense, particularly as China and Russia have sought to interfere with the nation’s economy, elections and security.

Republican lawmakers and national security experts have all called for a greater offensive posture. During his Senate confirmation hearing this year, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said America’s rivals have shown that they believe cyberespionage — retrieving sensitive information and disrupting American business and infrastructure — to be an essential weapon of the modern arsenal.

“I want us to have all of the tools necessary to go on offense against our adversaries in the cyber community,” Ratcliffe said.

Cyber Command oversees and coordinates the Pentagon’s cybersecurity work and is known as America’s first line of defense in cyberspace. It also plans offensive cyberoperations for potential use against adversaries.

Hegseth’s directive arrived before Friday’s dustup between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. It wasn’t clear if the pause was tied to any negotiating tactic by the Trump administration to push Moscow into a peace deal with Ukraine.

Trump has vowed to end the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, and on Monday he slammed Zelenskyy for suggesting the end to the conflict was “far away.”

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about Hegseth’s order.

Cyber warfare is cheaper than traditional military force, can be carried out covertly and doesn’t carry the same risk of escalation or retaliation, making it an increasingly popular tool for nations that want to contend with the U.S. but lack the traditional economic or military might, according to Snehal Antani, CEO of Horizon3.ai, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity firm founded by former national security officers.

Cyberespionage can allow adversaries to steal competitive secrets from American companies, obtain sensitive intelligence or disrupt supply chains or the systems that manage dams, water plants, traffic systems, private companies, governments and hospitals.

The internet has created new battlefields, too, as nations like Russia and China use disinformation and propaganda to undermine their opponents.

Artificial intelligence now makes it easier and cheaper than ever for anyone — be it a foreign nation like Russia, China or North Korea or criminal networks — to step up their cybergame at scale, Antani said. Fixing code, translating disinformation or identifying network vulnerabilities once required a human — now AI can do much of it faster.

“We are entering this era of cyber-enabled economic warfare that is at the nation-state level,” Antani said. “We’re in this really challenging era where offense is significantly better than defense, and it’s going to take a while for defense to catch up.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi also has disbanded an FBI task force focused on foreign influence campaigns, like those Russia used to target U.S. elections in the past. And more than a dozen people who worked on election security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were put on leave.

These actions are leaving the U.S. vulnerable despite years of evidence that Russia is committed to continuing and expanding its cyber efforts, according to Liana Keesing, campaigns manager for technology reform at Issue One, a nonprofit that has studied technology’s impact on democracy.

“Instead of confronting this threat, the Trump administration has actively taken steps to make it easier for the Kremlin to interfere in our electoral processes,” Keesing said.

NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk during his visit to the U.S. to meet President Donald Trump. The exact nature of the meeting is unclear, although Modi said on X that the two men “discussed various issues, including those he is passionate about such as space, mobility, technology and innovation.”

Musk was recently chosen by Trump to head a new U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Modi and Musk also met each other in New York in 2023. At that time Musk said he was “confident that Tesla will be in India … as soon as humanly possible.”

Modi and Musk met each other on Thursday during the Indian prime minister’s visit to the U.S. While Musk was accompanied by his three young children, Modi was notably flanked by his top advisers — including External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval.

Later, at a joint press conference with Modi at the White House, Trump said he wasn’t sure why Musk met the Indian prime minister but he assumed Musk “wants to do business in India.”

“I would imagine he met, possibly, because you know he’s running a company,” Trump told reporters.

India’s foreign ministry in a statement said Modi and Musk “discussed strengthening collaboration between Indian and U.S. entities in innovation, space exploration, artificial intelligence and sustainable development” and on “entrepreneurship and good governance.”

Musk, who previously called himself a “fan of Modi,” has long wanted his Starlink satellite internet service to make an entry into the Indian market. Its launch, however, has been delayed due to regulatory challenges, security concerns and opposition from domestic telecom giants like Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio.

Last November, India’s telecoms minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, said Starlink was yet to comply with security norms, and a license for satellite communications services will be issued only after the company meets all the requirements.

Musk had earlier criticized India’s policy of granting spectrum for satellite services through auctioning. The Indian government later changed the policy and said it will assign satellite spectrum and not auction it.

India’s satellite broadband service market is highly competitive. At least six companies control the market, led by Ambani’s Reliance Jio.

Apart from regulatory roadblocks, Musk’s Starlink has also faced resistance by Reliance Jio, which last year said granting spectrum for satellite services through auctioning is necessary to ensure fair competition.

Musk’s Starlink has at least 6,900 active satellites orbiting Earth that provide low-latency broadband to some 4.6 million people. But if Musk wants to enter the Indian market, Starlink’s high pricing could be a concern.

Mobile data in India is among the cheapest globally, and Ambani’s Jio once gave data for free on its mobile plans. And yet, at least 40% of the country’s more than 1.4 billion people still don’t have access to the internet. Cheap satellite broadband is needed to bridge this gap, particularly in India’s vast remote and mountainous areas.

Musk’s Tesla has also been waiting to get into India, which is one of the world’s largest automobile markets, but has faced hurdles due to high import duties on vehicles brought into the country.

Also, India’s electric vehicle market is still nascent and made up a little more than 2% of total car sales last year. But the government wants to change that and increase the electric vehicle share to 30% by 2030.

India also recently unveiled a new policy that extends concessional tariffs on fully imported electric vehicles made by foreign carmakers who commit to starting local manufacturing.

NEW YORK — Eugene Levy’s trademark eyebrows fly off for Little Caesars. A tongue dances to Shania Twain to promote Nestle’s Coffee Mate Cold Foam. And Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal reunite at Katz’s Deli in an ad for Hellmann’s.

A frenzied mix of silliness and celebrities is hitting the airwaves and the internet, and that means one thing: it is Super Bowl ad time again.

Veteran advertisers are using tried-and-true tactics like celebrity cameos, humor and cute animals to win over watchers. Meanwhile, first-time and newer advertisers are courting outrageousness and using stunts to try to stand out in the battle to capture the attention of the more than 120 million viewers expected to tune into Sunday’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs on Fox.

Super Bowl viewers are a unique audience because they’re as primed to watch the ads as they are the game.

“This is a societal moment where we come together as a country,” said Kimberly Whitler, marketing professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. “We may be on different sides, you know, of the gridiron or the field. But we come together.”

With 80-plus ad spots divvied up among the 50-something advertisers during the game, it’s tough to make sure viewers remember your brand message. And with a few ad spots going for a record $8 million for 30 seconds this year, the stakes have never been higher.

But the price tag is worth it, advertisers say. Rachel Jaiven, head of Haagen-Dazs marketing, said the brand decided to make its first-ever appearance in the game due to the size of the viewership and its association with snacking.

“We know at the Super Bowl these days that everyone watches, it’s a wide audience,” Jaiven said. The brand’s ad shows stars from the “Fast & Furious” franchise enjoying an ice cream bar. “We thought it was time for us to tell our story, remind people what they love about Haagen-Dazs and of course, have them stock up on Haagen-Dazs in their freezer.”

In order to garner more publicity, many advertisers release their ads ahead of the game. Of the ads that have already been released, here’s a sampling of the approaches advertisers are taking during the big game this year.

Hellmann’s

Hellmann’s ad made a splash ahead of the game by reuniting Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal’s “When Harry Met Sally” characters at Katz’s Deli enjoying a sandwich with Hellmann’s. Sydney Sweeney joins to utter the famous line “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Meta

Chris Pratt and Chris Hemsworth wear Ray-Ban Meta AI-powered glasses while looking at art. Hemsworth accidently eats a banana in an art piece worth $6.2 million, and Kris Jenner appears to scold them.

Michelob Ultra

Actors Catherine O’Hara and Willem Dafoe star as pickleball players hustling younger players to win Michelob Ultras.

Stella Artois

Soccer star David Beckham learns he has a twin named Dave Beckham who turns out to be Matt Damon. They don’t have much in common but both drink Stella Artois.

Uber Eats

Matthew McConaughey explains a conspiracy theory that football was invented to sell food, with cameos by Martha Stewart, Greta Gerwig, Charli XCX, Kevin Bacon and YouTuber Sean Evans.

Coors Light

Adorable sloths undergo mishaps because they’re slow, like a kitchen fire and running into a glass door; they have a “Case of the Mondays,” like many people sluggish at work the day after the Super Bowl.

Little Caesars

Actor Eugene Levy’s eyebrows fly off and fly around after he tries the pizza chain’s Crazy Puffs in what is strangely not the only ad with flying facial hair in it (see Pringles).

Nestle Coffee Mate

The first-time advertiser goes for silly humor in an ad that shows a man’s tongue dancing, and even doing a flip, to a song sung by Shania Twain to represent how good Nestle Coffee Mate Cold Foam tastes.

Pringles

Actor Nick Offerman, Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid and L.A. Clippers’ James Harden watch their famous mustaches fly away to help deliver Pringles.

Dove

Dove highlights the problem of low body confidence in young girls and depicts a young girl running down the sidewalk to H.E.R.’s version of “Born to Run.”

Foundation to Combat Antisemitism

Patriot owner Robert Kraft has an ad in the game for the second year in a row. Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady voice reasons why people hate each other in an effort to combat hate speech.

Hims and Hers

First-time advertiser Telehealth company Hims & Hers highlights the obesity epidemic and says weight loss drugs should be more affordable.

Novartis

First-time advertiser Novartis is focusing on breast cancer awareness in its ad featuring Wanda Sykes and Hailee Steinfeld.

Haagen-Dazs

The ice-cream brand reunites “Fast & Furious” stars Michelle Rodriguez, Vin Diesel and Ludacris, except this time, they’re going slow. They cruise down the Pacific Coast Highway in a Chevrolet Chevelle slowly so they can enjoy eating an ice cream bar.

Instacart

First-timer Instacart joins DoorDash and Uber Eats and a battle between food delivery services during the game. Instacart loads up its ad with tons of brand characters it hopes viewers recognize: from Mountain Dew’s “PuppyMonkeyBaby” character from a 2016 Super Bowl ad to the Jolly Green Giant and the Pillsbury Doughboy. The characters represent all the things you can get delivered from the food delivery service.

Totinos Pizza Rolls

In one of several ads featuring aliens, comedian Tim Robinson and actor Sam Richardson say goodbye to an alien who was living in their neighborhood. Cookware brand Hexclad and Doritos ads also feature aliens.

Not all advertisers release their ads early, so there are always plenty of surprises on game day. Only two auto brands, Stellantis’ Jeep and Ram, have announced Super Bowl ad plans, but they haven’t given any details on the ads.

Dunkin’ has secured the first ad spot after kickoff but is staying mum on details other than teasing that it will star Ben and Casey Affleck and Jeremy Strong. Canned water company Liquid Death will advertise for the first time with an ad created in-house. Duracell has teased that its ad will feature a “Duracell Scientist” but hasn’t given any other details.

Ad experts think it is unlikely that an A.I.-generated ad will debut during advertising’s biggest night after Coca-Cola’s holiday ad created with the help of A.I. technology drew some backlash. But if one did debut, it would be sure to make a splash.