In the nearly two week flood of violence and disinformation triggered by the Israel-Hamas war, powerful U.S. figures — including senators and the New York attorney general — have called for online platforms to stem the tide.

But there’s little they can do about it.

American politicians have been reduced to issuing sternly worded letters while their European counterparts deliver threats with potentially expensive consequences. In Brussels, officials have already launched an investigation of Elon Musk’s X, and have the power to fine companies for hosting violent content and disinformation.

In Washington, powerful members of Congress largely sputtered, issuing public demands for social media accountability with no clear way to enforce them.

On Tuesday, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), a vocal critic of tech platforms, sent a letter to leaders of X, Meta, TikTok and Alphabet demanding answers about the numbers of posts removed and numbers of employees dedicated to content moderation. The office of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) told POLITICO the four companies agreed to provide briefings this week to the staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee she chairs, following her demand for information on their content moderation policies. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the ranking member on the committee, called on Meta, X and YouTube to “vigorously enforce” their terms of service.

In New York, Attorney General Letitia James wrote to Google, X, Meta, TikTok, Reddit and Rumble on Friday demanding answers about how the sites were addressing calls for violence on their platforms.

Yet none of their appeals have the teeth to force any change, thanks to years of stalled efforts in Congress to regulate online content, the First Amendment’s free speech protections and a unique liability shield that tech firms have enjoyed since the 1990s.

Washington’s flimsy response the past two weeks stands in sharp contrast to the European Union, where officials quickly deployed their new Digital Services Act to launch an investigation into X last week over its handling of violent content around the Hamas attacks. Brussels has also sent warnings to Meta, TikTok and Google’s YouTube. Regulators have the authority to fine a company up to 6 percent of its global revenue for failing to remove violent content and disinformation.

In the absence of federal law, the White House has also reached out directly to social media companies to raise concerns about their platforms, according to Nathaniel Fick, the inaugural U.S. ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy.

“We are in regular dialogue with the tech platforms on these issues of responsible behavior at a volatile time, obviously starting at a position of respect for the First Amendment,” Fick said on the POLITICO Tech podcast.

The White House’s outreach was striking in light of the political blowback the Biden administration has faced over its dealings with social media firms, including a GOP-led lawsuit claiming the administration violated the First Amendment by allegedly censoring content during the coronavirus pandemic. House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan presides over an investigation into whether the executive branch “coerced or colluded” with tech firms to censor speech.

One reason U.S. officials are hamstrung is Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability over most of the content they disseminate. President Joe Biden has called on Congress to “fundamentally reform” the statute.

In Congress, Bennet has proposed creating a new federal entity to regulate social media, but the bill lacks any cosponsors and has never been taken up by a committee.

“We need a federal regulator empowered to write rules to prevent foreign disinformation on digital platforms, increase transparency around content moderation and levy fines to hold these companies accountable,” Bennet told POLITICO.

In New York, James recently introduced legislation with Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers to set guardrails around harmful content on social media, but it won’t be considered until the legislature returns next year.

Platforms contacted by POLITICO say they are taking steps to address the toxic content on their sites. YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said the site had removed “tens of thousands of harmful videos and terminated hundreds of channels” since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and subsequent Israeli bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip. TikTok said it removed over 500,000 videos and closed 8,000 live streams since Oct. 7, and added an unspecified number of additional content moderators who speak Hebrew and Arabic. Meta said it has removed more than 700,000 videos violating its policies against violent content and hate speech or labeled them as disturbing during the first three days of conflict. X did not respond to a request for comment.

In Europe, meanwhile, one European Commission official told POLITICO the White House had praised its approach.

“We’ve had some high U.S. representatives thanking us for what we’ve done with our regulation on Big Tech in the context of dealing with disinformation, misinformation and illegal content after the Hamas attack,” the official said, speaking anonymously to discuss the matter openly.

The White House declined to comment.

Clothilde Goujard contributed to this report.

Don’t call him junior.

Rep. Rob Menendez, the 38-year-old son of Sen. Bob Menendez, joined the House earlier this year thanks in large part to the family name.

Now, he’s in a mess because of it.

His powerful father’s political career appears all but over after prosecutors laid out unseemly allegations in a federal indictment this fall. They allege Sen. Menendez was an agent of the Egyptian government while leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and accepted bribes in the form of gold bars, envelopes of cash and a new car for his wife Nadine, who had ruined hers during a collision that killed a pedestrian. Bob and Nadine Menendez have pleaded not guilty.

While his son has nothing to do with this legal case, the political fallout could threaten the 2024 reelection of Rob Menendez, a first-term member who sailed to victory last year and now sits in a congressional seat representing much of the North Jersey area his father did for seven terms in the House.

Now Rob Menendez is trying to stand with his father while also avoiding being dragged down by him.

Many of New Jersey’s major Democrats — including Gov. Phil Murphy and Sen. Cory Booker — have abandoned the father, urging him to step down for the good of the party and the country.

The father has yet to make his own intentions clear, giving cryptic answers as terrible polling numbers are made public, but he’s defied calls to step down.

In the days following the indictment, it looked like being untouched by his father’s legal troubles was not enough to spare political headaches for Rob Menendez. The mayor of Hoboken, the second largest city in the district, quickly got the word out that he may challenge Rob Menendez in next year’s primary, and there is talk of others who might also jump in the race.

To head off any doubt about his intentions, Rob Menendez almost immediately made clear he’s going to run for reelection.

And, so far, it looks like he may win.

For Rob Menendez, the first major test is the response of key Democrats in the Menendez political homeland of Hudson County, N.J. As long as Rob Menendez makes it through his party’s primary next June, he’s almost certain to return to Congress in the very blue district.

The Menendez name still carries significant weight in Hudson County, where loyalties run deep and political bosses make or break careers. Even though he faces calls to step down from the Senate, Bob Menendez is still regarded as a “rock star” to voters and the county Democratic Party has declined to call for his resignation — one indication that the younger Menendez may not pay a price for the alleged crimes of his father.

“I’ve had the good fortune to know Rob since he was a young boy, and he’s always been someone who constantly wants to give service to the community and he definitely wants to be his own man,” said Hudson County Commissioner Anthony Romano.

In interviews, several key Hudson County figures seemed to see the two Menendezes as separable. Even if they didn’t all say it, they seemed to adopt the biblical view that a son should not be judged by the sins of the father. (At least one person who ventured to say something similar quickly backtracked because, they said, they did not want to be quoted as suggesting the father had sinned — a sign that, however weakened Sen. Menendez may be, he remains formidable.)

Rob Menendez — who does not go by “junior” — would admit that being his father’s son helped him. He’s not naïve. But, he’d argue, it hasn’t helped him as much as people think.

“For nearly 20 years, I have supported campaigns from the local to federal level, while forging relationships with New Jersey’s political leaders who supported my own campaign to represent the 8th Congressional District,” he said in a statement.

A critic’s version of his resume would look like this: The young Menendez popped up a few years ago as a potential candidate for Jersey City mayor, where he would have challenged Steven Fulop, a political nemesis of his father, in an act of vengeance. Instead, he got a plum appointment from Murphy as a member of the powerful Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. And, when U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.) retired, Rob faced virtually no opposition to succeed him as an heir apparent to a seat his father used to hold.

But another view is that Rob has been interested in politics since he was a young man. He was around politics, learned politics and worked hard to break through. He got into a good college — UNC Chapel Hill — went to law school, did a fellowship at the Port Authority, went into private practice at the politically well-connected firm of Lowenstein Sandler and when the opportunity presented itself, looked for things to run for. He won and now in Congress remains as visible in Jersey City as anyone its voters have sent to Congress since the late Rep. Frank Guarini.

There are also glimpses that perhaps his father has not always viewed his son as a political heir, even if he has been drawn, however slightly, into his father’s legal troubles.

In fall 2017, long before he appeared as a major figure in the New Jersey politician scene, Rob Menendez took the witness stand to make the case that a Florida eye doctor accused of bribing his father had offered private jet flights, lavish vacations and hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions out of friendship, not as bribes.

A defense attorney asked Rob Menendez how he referred to the doctor, Salomon Melgen, who he said he’d known since he was a child.

“Doc, Dr. Melgen. But also occasionally as tio,” Rob Menendez said. “It means uncle in Spanish.”

His testimony seemed to bolster the claim made by his father that he’d been prosecuted for friendship, and the case ended in a mistrial. Bob Menendez won another term as New Jersey’s senior Democratic senator.

But when he took the stand in the Melgen case, Rob Menendez told jurors that he came back to the state from college in North Carolina to work on his father’s 2006 Senate campaign “against my dad’s wishes.”

Of course, when he decided to run for things, the name was a good one to have.

“The reality is nepotism exists throughout the world, it’s not limited to Hudson County,” said Gerry McCann, a former Jersey City mayor.

When the younger Menendez was floated as a candidate for Jersey City mayor, the sympathetic view was that he was raising a family in Jersey City and heard from people who wanted things done differently.

Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea said Rob Menendez was having serious conversations about how he’d change the city, rooted in his view of the city as someone raising a family there.

At the Port Authority, where he went instead, agency chair Kevin O’Toole said in a statement that “Rob distinguished himself as a commissioner singularly focused on ensuring that the agency never lost sight of its core mission to keep the region moving. His deliberative, insightful approach to matters that came before us was invaluable and every resident of the Port District is better served because of his tenure on the board.”

When Sires retired, Rob Menendez emerged as the favored candidate to replace him. He locked up support from the local and state party establishment before even announcing his run, enough that all but assured him the seat.

“The father never called me and asked me to support him, there was no need for him to even try to do it,” O’Dea said.

On the campaign trail, the Menendezes certainly share allies. Before the indictment was filed, a bit over a quarter of Rob Menendez’s big donors were also donors to his father’s campaign since the start of 2021, according to a POLITICO analysis of campaign data.

But Menendez has people in his corner. A few weeks ago, he walked in the Hispanic State Parade beside Brian Stack, a Democratic state senator who is also the mayor of Union City and the head of one of the greatest get-out-the-vote machines in New Jersey politics. Stack gave Menendez’s 2022 campaign an early — and key — endorsement.

If people like Stack stick with Rob Menendez, it’s hard to see who could beat him. Stack did not respond to a call seeking comment, but in 2021, as Sires’ retirement plans became known, Stack was quick to back Menendez and said at the time, “It can’t hurt that he’s got the help from his dad, but he’s really his own person.”

Now the son is an election away from knowing if he can stand on his own.

Jessica Piper contributed to this report.

With the House effectively shut down, the Senate has the upper hand on Washington’s two biggest issues this fall — aiding Ukraine and Israel and keeping the government open.

Even if the House GOP selects a speaker or a caretaker leader to claw out of the current chaos, its Republicans will already be in a weakened state as the White House prepares a massive, potentially $100 billion request for national security aid. Instead, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Senate GOP looks to have the Republican sway over both that foreign money debate and the fight to avoid a shutdown.

As his last act before getting ousted, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made the Senate swallow a spending bill without Ukraine aid that his conservative members opposed. But with a Nov. 17 shutdown deadline less than a month away and Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan’s speaker bid sputtering, the next confrontation over federal funding is looking very different.

That’s in large part because McConnell, after enduring public scrutiny of his health all summer, is embracing a generous aid package for Ukraine and Israel and is in harmony with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the framework of that legislation. The Senate minority leader faces real internal opposition of his own, but at the moment his anti-shutdown, pro-Ukraine position at least gives Democratic leaders a Republican they can talk to.

It’s a harsh unintended consequence for the House conservatives who ejected McCarthy: The Senate minority leader who many of them abhor is, for the moment, the most influential leader in the congressional GOP.

“He’s the only Republican negotiator,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a longtime House member, said of McConnell. Welch underscored what’s become obvious the longer that House Republicans fail to pick a speaker: They “don’t have a coherent point of view that has votes behind it.”

Even some members of the fractious House GOP conference acknowledge the harsh reality they’re facing. The longer they struggle without a speaker, the more anxious they get about having the Senate’s fingerprints all over the next major spending fights.

The House’s leadership vacuum means that “we cede our ability to do what we need to be doing to govern to the Senate, to the White House,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a longtime appropriator who refuses to support Jordan for speaker. “This House needs a little help, needs a little divine intervention right now.”

Womack is among several Republicans who are now seriously debating a plan to give new powers to their acting speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.). That move, its backers say, would give the House at least some say in any spending talks this month as the speaker battle drags on. Yet more authority for McHenry remains a huge unknown, since it would likely require Democratic votes.

And there are zero guarantees that the House GOP could pass any kind of spending package without Democratic support, given its four-seat majority, even if McHenry was able to bring a bill to the floor. Senators don’t exactly have other options.

“The House is frankly usually pretty independent and wants to do their own thing. But if they don’t have a thing to do, then that creates a situation where the Senate passes something — and then they’ll have no choice but to take it or leave it,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a top McConnell deputy. “Colloquially known as ‘being jammed’.”

The Senate also has its own problems: A stalled spending measure that they’d wanted to tackle with bipartisan buy-in, the indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and an unprecedented backlog of military promotions. But the upper chamber looks positively well-oiled compared to the leaderless House.

Senate Republicans are well aware that being publicly at odds with House Republicans risks exacerbating gridlock and sparking ire on both sides of the Capitol.

Yet the alternative of doing nothing seems out of the question.

“I don’t think that we can afford to sit and wait here,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said. “I appreciate that. And, you know, my view is that there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and the sooner the better.”

House Republicans could assert themselves on another front in the Senate’s dealmaking on appropriations — by conducting informal talks. Yet Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a former appropriations chair who still wields power on the spending panel, said the all-consuming chaos is preventing the usual House-Senate backchanneling among top lawmakers.

“With this turmoil going on, it’s hard to get time that’s not already taken. So it’s just been extremely difficult to get together,” Rogers said.

One thing that’s reassuring some House Republicans: The Senate hasn’t started on one critical item on Congress’ to-do list — the Israel aid package. The White House is expected to submit its formal request this week, which means the Senate could take it up as soon, piling new pressure on to the dysfunctional House.

For the moment, though, the Senate hasn’t even managed to pass a nonbinding resolution supporting Israel.

McConnell and Schumer are approaching the House’s rocky few weeks from different angles. Schumer declared on Wednesday that the next speaker will have to operate on a bipartisan basis, given the realities of a Democratic Senate and White House.

Until there is a speaker, though, Schumer said that the Senate “must act as a steady, bipartisan force” and said that he “will not wait for the House.” It’s not exactly a predicament that Democratic senators wanted.

“I don’t want to be empowered this way,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “Obviously, it raises the stakes for us to be functional.”

McConnell endorsed a national security spending bill for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and border security this week, which Schumer praised him for by name on Wednesday. But the GOP leader has pointedly refrained from poking the House, declaring that “I got my hands full in the Senate.”

Indeed, McConnell will likely face plenty of his own internal opposition as he tries to chart a path forward. In particular, linking help for Ukraine with Israel funding is almost certain to split GOP senators.

“It makes no sense,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who ran against McConnell in last year’s leadership race. “I oppose it.”

Still, it’s not difficult to see that Senate Republicans, despite not controlling their half of Congress, may have to step into the breach to formulate the Hill GOP’s position. Senate Republicans estimate that a majority of their members are interested in funding Ukraine and Israel, meaning that they could put up a strong vote for national security legislation (likely with a border security component).

That was the plan in late September, as the Senate plodded forward with a government funding bill with $6 billion in Ukraine aid — until McCarthy surprised Washington by calling up a funding bill without that money. A few days later, the former speaker was out of a job, giving senators an opening whether they like it or not.

“Other than nominations, we’ve done very little. And we need to address this issue of money for Israel in Ukraine and Taiwan and the border,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said of the Senate agenda. “While the House is getting its business together, we need to go forward.”