With Daniel Lippman SKYDANCE TAPS FORMER SCHATZ CHIEF: Skydance Media has hired its first federal lobbyists to help sell the movie studio’s bid to take over Hollywood and media giant Paramount Global. Latham & Watkins, which is representing Skydance in the merger talks, last month retained former Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) chief of staff and telecom adviser Eric Einhorn, according to a disclosure filing. — The deal announced earlier this summer is worth $8 billion. According to filings with the FCC earlier this month, the new company, whose holdings would include household media names such as CBS, Nickelodeon and MTV, would be run by Larry Ellison, the tech billionaire and GOP megadonor whose son David Ellison founded Skydance. (David Ellison has also gotten into politics recently.) — Because the acquisition involves the transfer of broadcast licenses for more than two dozen CBS stations, it must first receive signoff from the FCC. But as Deadline noted last week, the transaction comes at a time when Biden administration regulators are paying especially close attention to “the impact of mergers on labor markets,” a dynamic Skydance seemed to try to address in its filing. — While Skydance has no other federal lobbyists on its payroll, Paramount, of course, has scores of them. The company has spent more than $2.8 million on lobbying so far this year, including on antitrust issues, and retains Capitol Counsel, Capitol Tax Partners, FGS Global and Becker & Poliakoff, according to disclosures. MORE NEW BUSINESS: Einhorn, whose one-year cooling-off period for lobbying Congress just ended, has registered to lobby for a couple of other clients in addition to Skydance. Einhorn is lobbying on broadband deployment, universal service, spectrum policy, regulatory enforcement, public safety and other telecom issues on behalf of T-Mobile, and on internet, artificial intelligence, competition and consumer protection policy on behalf of Booking Holdings, the parent company of the eponymous travel site (as well as Priceline, Kayak, Cheapflights and OpenTable). Happy Thursday and welcome to PI. Send K Street tips and gossip: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. PUT A PIN IN THIS: More than 500 trade associations laid down a marker today ahead of next year’s tax fight, warning the next Congress and presidential administration to avoid slapping businesses and families with what they say would be “the largest tax increase in American history” if provisions from the 2017 tax bill are allowed to sunset at the end of 2025. — “The expiration of many of these reforms will reduce economic growth, increase costs for families, harm main street businesses, reduce take-home pay for workers, and result in significant job losses,” the business coalition wrote, calling such consequences “unacceptable and completely avoidable.” — The signatories included the Air Conditioning Contractors of America, the American Hotel and Lodging Association, Airlines for America, the American Chemistry Council, the Associated Builders and Contractors, CTIA, the Federation of American Hospitals, FMI - The Food Industry Association, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the International Franchise Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, the Security Industry Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, as well as hundreds more national and local trade associations. ALTMAN’S WHITE HOUSE SUMMIT: “The face of artificial intelligence in America is set to meet with top US officials at the White House on Thursday,” CNN’s Matt Egan reports, for “a first-of-its-kind meeting to solve a riddle that could severely strain US infrastructure: how to power the AI boom.” — “Sam Altman, the CEO behind ChatGPT maker Open AI, Google senior executive Ruth Porat and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei are expected to be among the tech executives in attendance, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.” — “The meeting, which hasn’t been previously reported, is the first time senior White House officials will sit down with tech company leadership to discuss how to quench AI’s insatiable thirst for energy. … Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and other top officials from the Biden-Harris administration are also set to attend, along with representatives from Microsoft, according to a White House official.” FLYING IN: Over on the Hill, founders from a dozen AI-focused startups met Wednesday with staff or lawmakers from almost two dozen offices as part of a fly-in organized by the AI entrepreneurs group TheSalon.ai. — Founders from startups including Trustible, Plural, Acclinate, HacWare and Shubox shared how they use AI in their businesses and stressed the need to balance any AI legislation in order to maximize the technology’s benefits while minimizing its risks. — Attendees met with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), as well as staff for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.); Reps. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), Dianna DeGette (D-Colo.) and more. WHO’S IN VANCE’S WALL STREET CIRCLE: CNBC’s Brian Schwartz reports that “over the past decade, Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance of Ohio has quietly built a network of allies on Wall Street, one that is distinct from his running mate, former President Donald Trump’s, circles.” — “Now, Vance’s fans are mobilizing to help him raise millions of dollars for the Trump-Vance presidential campaign. On Thursday, Vance will headline two fundraisers in New York City hosted by some of his top supporters in the financial industry. Each of the events is expected to raise more than $1 million for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign operation.” — The “small but loyal base of support for Vance on Wall Street has grown over the years, in spite of Vance’s criticism of the financial industry, according to interviews with over half a dozen people familiar with the matter.” UPPING THE ANTE: “Leonard Leo, the conservative activist with an estimated $1 billion at his disposal, is threatening to withhold money from the dozens of groups he supports unless they develop plans to ‘weaponize’ their ideas,” per Axios’ Hans Nichols, who obtained a letter to the groups in which Leo called for less talk and more action in order to “crush liberal dominance at the choke points of influence and power in our society.” — “Leo, 59, is telling organizations backed by his 85 Fund that he's undertaking a ‘comprehensive review’ of his grant-making process,” which he said would be completed by the end of November. “Behind Leo's new push is his admiration for what he views as successes of progressive nonprofit groups such as The Wyss Foundation and the Berger Action Fund, supported by Hansjörg Wyss.” — “He is also convinced that liberal organizations and ideas have captured most influential institutions in government, media, entertainment and academia. ‘They invested in talent pipelines to populate the power centers inside government, where policy would be implemented,’ Leo writes. "They incubated litigation as a means of leveraging the law to produce change.” FIRST IN PI: Three members of Congress filed their required personal financial disclosures on Thursday after being several weeks late in filing the forms, Daniel reports. Americans for Public Trust, a conservative watchdog group, this morning filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics asking it to investigate whether four members, including those three, failed to file their required financial disclosures in a timely fashion. — In the letter to OCE sent before the new filings, APT Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland said that Reps. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), John Rose (R-Tenn.), Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) had not filed their 2023 disclosure despite the form being due Aug. 13, which itself was a 90-day extension from the original May 15 deadline. — Sutherland said in the letter that the filing delay deprived “constituents, and the public at-large, of the opportunity to ensure that official actions are not being steered to personally benefit” themselves. — “The transparency promoted by these disclosure requirements bolsters public trust, and is an important bellwether in determining, from a House Ethics standpoint, whether Members of Congress are engaging in behavior that reflects creditably on the House and adhering to the spirit and the letter of the law,” Sutherland said. — When reached for comment, a Hoyer spokesperson pointed PI to his office’s Aug. 13 statement that announced that he’d had a stroke two days earlier. The office filed the disclosure this morning shortly after the letter from APT was sent. Ryan spokesperson Sam Silverman said Ryan’s disclosure was filed this afternoon. — A spokesperson for Rose said the report was filed this afternoon as well, after Rose received a final piece of financial information from a third party that was necessary to complete the report. The spokesperson added that Rose has filed every disclosure necessary since he was elected and passed along a previous statement from Rose calling for reforms “to give members like me with financial investments and/or who own small businesses the time to accurately complete this disclosure form within the statutory deadline.” — A spokesperson for Ogles, who is facing an FBI investigation into his campaign finance filings, had no comment. OCE declined to comment.
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