SAN FRANCISCO — A former longtime friend of Elon Musk has a word of caution for President Donald Trump about the tech mogul: He doesn’t really move on.

Philip Low, an award-winning neuroscientist who partnered with the late, legendary cosmologist Stephen Hawking as a test subject, learned that the hard way in 2021 when he fired Musk, one of his early investors, from the advisory board of the Silicon Valley startup he founded.

Over an hour-long interview, Low weaved something of a psychological portrait of his former adviser, casting him as obsessive, prone to seeking revenge, power hungry and in constant search of dominance. He suggested Musk aims to explore every available avenue to establish competition with and ultimately overshadow bitter rivals. Low has known him for 14 years but doesn’t believe Musk has matured over time, and he’s convinced he never will.

Though the two continued to speak for years after Low fired him, Low felt that Musk carried a grudge and their bond was permanently altered. It finally snapped in January when Low joined other critics in accusing the billionaire on social media of performing Nazi salutes at Trump’s inaugural rally. Musk brushed off the public backlash as “sooo” tired.

“I’ve had my share of blowouts with Elon over the years,” Low told POLITICO in a rare interview since Musk’s ugly spat with Trump. “Knowing Elon the way I know him, I do think he's going to do everything to damage the president.”

Musk did not respond to multiple requests for comment directed to him and his businesses X, Tesla and SpaceX. A spokesperson for his super PAC, America PAC, declined to comment.

Musk and Trump’s made-for-TV breakup erupted earlier this month over the president’s megabill that is still moving through Congress. Complete with threats, nonstop X posts and conspiracy-laced insults, their feud hit a peak after Trump mused about canceling the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s government contracts.

In response, Musk unloaded on the social media platform he owns by trashing the president’s megabill, floating support of a third party, chiding him for “ingratitude,” taking credit for his election win and even insinuating in a now-deleted post that records of the investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein "have not been made public" because Trump is in them.

(While it has long been public that Trump and other prominent figures are referenced in documents released in cases surrounding Epstein, Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing linked to Epstein.)

Both sides now say tensions have cooled. The White House is eager to move on, with Trump telling reporters he’ll keep Starlink internet and wishing Musk well. Musk, for his part, admitted some of his posts got out of hand and offered an apology a week later.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement, “Politico’s fixation on another palace intrigue non-story is laughable and fundamentally unserious. The President is focused on Making America Great Again by securing our border, turning the economy around, and pursuing peace around the globe.”

But Low, who considers himself a political independent, said that Trump and the American public shouldn’t be fooled. Simply put: Any reconciliation with Musk will be “purely cosmetic” and transactional.

“He has been humiliated,” Low, 45, said of his old friend. “The whole idea that Elon is going to be on his side and help woo Congress and invest in election campaigns for right-wing judges — Elon might do all of that, but deep down, it's over.”

Low has observed that Trump, on the other hand, “tends to make up with his former sparring partners like [Steve] Bannon a bit more easily than Elon does,” though the president is known for returning to his grievances as well.

As he tells it, Musk and Low became fast friends after first meeting in 2011 at a social occasion in Paris. Their relationship deepened over late nights in Los Angeles — where Musk lived at the time — spent hanging out, attending each other’s parties, texting frequently and trading stories about personal struggles.

Musk asked to invest in the company Low built around a non-invasive brain monitoring device used to detect conditions like sleep apnea and neurological disorders. He participated in NeuroVigil’s 2015 funding round and joined its advisory board. Low had already gained attention as a young innovator, launched a NASA satellite lab and demoed how his technology could translate Hawking's brain waves into speech.

Musk gave Low some pointers as the neuroscientist was preparing to visit the White House for the first time, as a guest of former President Barack Obama. “He said ‘he’s a human being like anybody else,’” Low recounted. “He views Trump sort of the same way, just a human being.”

During Trump’s first term, as Musk was also grappling with how to balance Tesla’s business interests against policy disagreements with the administration, Low returned the advice and recommended he step away from White House advisory councils he served on to protect the automaker’s brand. Musk ultimately did in 2017 after Trump ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

A few years later, in 2021, Musk was looking to pull out of another business arrangement. He wanted off NeuroVigil’s advisory board. Instead of letting him resign, Low said he fired Musk, which prevented him from exercising his stock options to hurt NeuroVigil.

“Let’s cut ties here,” Low wrote in an email message to Musk at the time, viewed by POLITICO. Musk by then had launched his brain implant company Neuralink and had long been dreaming of colonizing Mars. “Good luck with your implants, all of them, and with building Pottersville on Mars. Seriously, don’t fuck with me,” Low wrote.

Musk, of course, went on to donate $288 million during the 2024 election, which cemented his place in MAGA politics and status as the largest and most prominent individual political donor in the country. His America PAC once vowed to “keep grinding” at an even more audacious political playbook ahead of the midterms. But Musk scaled back his 2026 ambitions, promising to do “a lot less” campaign spending in the future, shortly before his public clash with Trump.

With Musk’s allegiance to MAGA called into question, Low predicted he could seek revenge behind the scenes — “it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when” — a possibility Trump has openly pondered.

The president warned of “serious consequences” if Musk funds Democratic challengers against Republicans who back his “big, beautiful bill”— the legislation that would enact Trump’s domestic policy agenda, but that Musk has scorned as wasteful pork-barrel spending.

However, if there was any lingering notion that Musk would completely retreat from politics, he dispelled it on Saturday by renewing his attacks on the bill ahead of a critical vote.

The takedown

Unlike his old pal, Low prefers to keep a lower profile. The Canadian neuroscientist wore aviator sunglasses indoors throughout the interview. When POLITICO first reached out, an automated reply from Low’s email robot came back, noting that he was “completely off the grid” and providing a math puzzle to solve to get on his calendar. POLITICO didn’t solve the problem, perhaps because it's not solvable, but he replied anyway.

Low spoke to the press infrequently between the early 2010s, when his company partnered with Hawking, and when he posted the takedown that ended any remaining friendship with Musk earlier this year. One of the rare exceptions was a 2013 fireside chat where Low, in an “Occupy Mars” shirt, spoke next to Musk at the Canadian Consul General’s Residence in Los Angeles.

Low sees little daylight between the Elon he knew before and the one who fractured his relationship with the president.

“A lot of people close to him will say that he changed. I don't believe that to be true,” he said. “I've seen this side of Elon over the years, but I just think that over time, he got cozy with the idea of showing more of that, and now it seems to have affected him.”

When Musk came under fire for his salutes at Trump’s post-inauguration rally, Low, the son of a Holocaust survivor, said he first confronted his former friend with a private message. He said in the email viewed by POLITICO: “I am so glad I fired your dumb ass” and warned him to learn from the fate of Rodion Raskolnikov, the central character in “Crime and Punishment,” who convinces himself that extraordinary men are justified in committing crimes if they serve a higher goal.

Four days passed without a reply, and Low proceeded to cut contact before letting it rip in a nearly 2,000-word open letter that went viral on Facebook and LinkedIn.

“I made my displeasure known to him as one of his closest former friends at that point, and I blocked him,” he said.

That’s a diplomatic description. Low in his letter delivered a blistering portrait of Musk as a narcissist whose “lust for power” keeps driving him to undermine the very organizations that challenge his hold on it. Musk didn’t respond publicly.

According to Low, those tendencies put Musk “in a league of his own” in Silicon Valley — where he locked into power struggles with many a co-founder, from PayPal’s Peter Thiel to Tesla’s Martin Eberhard to OpenAI’s Sam Altman. And the predictable playbook followed him to Trump’s side as first buddy, a role Low dubbed his former friend’s greatest investment.

“Elon has his own pattern of trying to destabilize companies. He wants to take over, and if he can't take them over, then he tries to create a rival entity to compete,” Low said. “They were absolutely on a collision course, and I think that Trump tried to gloss over it by making it look as if he wanted Elon to be as aggressive as he was.”

‘Playing defense’

Musk is back in industry mode, for now. Earlier this month, he addressed an artificial intelligence boot camp hosted by the startup accelerator Y Combinator in San Francisco, downplaying the importance of the Department of Government Efficiency by comparing his work on the commission to cleaning up beaches.

“Imagine you’re cleaning a beach, which has a few needles, trash and is dirty. And there’s a 1,000-foot tsunami, which is AI, that’s about to hit. You’re not going to focus on cleaning the beach,” Musk told the crowd of students and recent graduates of why he ultimately left.

His attention has since shifted to Austin, Texas, where Tesla heavily promoted and launched its long-hyped robotaxi service last weekend. Of companies within Musk’s business empire, the automaker took the hardest hit from his political entanglements, battered by consumer protests, tariffs, declining sales and dips in its stock price that allowed SpaceX to overtake it as his most valuable asset.

Low looks back at the Tesla Takedown protests that sprung up in the months following his letter with satisfaction. It was proof, in his mind, that the message struck a chord: “The audience was the world, and it worked.”

While few peers in Silicon Valley have called out Musk to the same degree, Low added that several reacted positively to him in private for taking those criticisms public.

“Many of these people happen to have investors on their boards, who made money with Elon, so they felt that they were putting themselves at risk if they spoke out,” he said. “A number of people did reach out and thank me, and they were in violent agreement.”

Low said he had “an armada” of lawyers at the ready in case Musk went after him. That possibility hasn’t yet panned out.

Although they no longer speak, Low still follows Musk’s activities. He said he was busy during the Trump feud and had to catch up later. But during the interview with POLITICO, he would reference the occasional X post from Musk, including a recent one where he shared negative drug test results to dispute reports of his alleged ketamine use.

To Low, the post was a sign the rift hasn’t been fully smoothed over and that Musk is “playing defense.” Bannon has called for a federal investigation into New York Times reporting that claimed Musk took large amounts of ketamine and other drugs while campaigning for Trump. POLITICO has not independently verified the allegations.

“The way I read that is that he is concerned that some government contracts could be canceled and that the drug use could be used against him, so he's trying to already build a moat,” Low said.

As for Trump, Low has some advice for handling a potentially resentful Musk: “Abide by the constitution,” and perhaps, listen to some of the tech titan’s policy preferences.

Low was especially outspoken against the administration’s ICE raids and efforts to limit immigration, arguing they will cost America its advantage in technologies like AI by sapping Silicon Valley of the global talent that allows it to compete. Many in tech circles had hoped Musk’s seat at the table would help the industry loosen barriers for high-skilled workers, a cause he once vowed to “go to war” with MAGA Republicans over.

That's something that Low, given his experience with Musk, thinks Trump should take seriously.

“Elon has wooed enough of Trump's supporters to be an actual threat politically,” Low said, arguing that Trump would better insulate himself by moderating his agenda. “He doesn't realize the battle that he has on his hands, and one way to cut the support away from Elon is to actually adopt some of the things he is for.”

Marco Rubio joins POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for an exclusive interview to discuss his dual roles as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor as he navigates the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.

Burns is later joined by Alex Bruesewitz to discuss his rise from very online Trump supporter to close adviser to the president, and why vigorous online debate has helped, not hurt, the MAGA coalition.

Plus, POLITICO diplomatic correspondent Felicia Schwartz at The Hague during the NATO Summit discusses the diplomatic efforts underway amid ceasefire talks between Israel and Iran.

Listen and subscribe to The Conversation with Dasha Burns on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Marco Rubio on his many roles, plus a chat with Trump’s ‘chief Twitter troll’ | The Conversation

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ST. PAUL, Minnesota — Former President Joe Biden joined thousands of mourners Friday as former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman lay in state in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda while the man charged with killing her and her husband, and wounding a state senator and his wife, made a brief court appearance in a suicide prevention suit.

Hortman, a Democrat, is the first woman and one of fewer than 20 Minnesotans accorded the honor. She lay in state with her husband, Mark, and their golden retriever, Gilbert. Her husband was also killed in the June 14 attack, and Gilbert was seriously wounded and had to be euthanized. It was the first time a couple has lain in state at the Capitol, and the first time for a dog.

The Hortmans’ caskets and the dog’s urn were arranged in the center of the rotunda, under the Capitol dome, with law enforcement officers keeping watch on either side as thousands of people who lined up filed by. Many fought back tears as they left.

Among the first to pay their respects were Gov. Tim Walz, who has called Hortman his closest political ally, and his wife, Gwen. Biden, a Catholic, visited later in the afternoon, walking up to the velvet rope in front of the caskets, making the sign of the cross, and spending a few moments by himself in silence. He then took a knee briefly, got up, made the sign of the cross again, and walked off to greet people waiting in the wings of the rotunda.

The Capitol was open for the public from noon to 5 p.m. Friday, but officials said anyone waiting in line at 5 would be let in. House TV livestreamed the viewing. A private funeral is set for 10:30 a.m. Saturday and will be livestreamed on the Department of Public Safety’s YouTube channel.

Biden will attend the funeral, a spokesperson said. So will former Vice President Kamala Harris, though neither is expected to speak. Harris expressed her condolences earlier this week to Hortman’s adult children, and spoke with Walz, her running mate on the 2024 Democratic presidential ticket, who extended an invitation on behalf of the Hortman family, her office said.

Lisa Greene, who lives in Brooklyn Park like Hortman did, but in a different House district, said she came to the Capitol because she had so much respect for the former speaker.

“She was just amazing. Amazing woman. “And I was just so proud that she represented the city that I lived in,” Greene said in a voice choked with emotion. “She was such a leader. She could bring people together. She was so accessible. I mean, she was friendly, you could talk to her.” But, she went on to say admiringly, Hortman was also “a boss. She just knew what she was doing and she could just make things happen.”

A hearing takes a twist: The man accused of killing the Hortmans and wounding another Democratic lawmaker and his wife made a short court appearance Friday to face charges for what the chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota has called “a political assassination.” Vance Boelter, 57, of Green Isle, surrendered near his home the night of June 15 after what authorities have called the largest search in Minnesota history.

An unshaven Boelter was brought in wearing just a green padded suicide prevention suit and orange slippers. Federal defender Manny Atwal asked Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko to continue the hearing until Thursday. She said Boelter has been sleep deprived while on suicide watch in the Sherburne County Jail, and that it has been difficult to communicate with him as a result.

“Your honor, I haven’t really slept in about 12 to 14 days,” Boelter told the judge. And he denied being suicidal. “I’ve never been suicidal and I am not suicidal now.”

Atwal told the court that Boelter had been in what’s known as a “Gumby suit,” without undergarments, ever since his transfer to the jail after his first court appearance on June 16. She said the lights are on in his area 24 hours a day, doors slam frequently, the inmate in the next cell spreads feces on the walls, and the smell drifts to Boelter’s cell.

The attorney said transferring him to segregation instead, and giving him a normal jail uniform, would let him get some sleep, restore some dignity, and let him communicate better. The judge agreed.

Prosecutors did not object to the delay and said they also had concerns about the jail conditions.

The acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joseph Thompson, told reporters afterward that he did not think Boelter had attempted to kill himself.

The case continues: Boelter did not enter a plea. Prosecutors need to secure a grand jury indictment first, before his arraignment, which is when a plea is normally entered.

According to the federal complaint, police video shows Boelter outside the Hortmans’ home and captures the sound of gunfire. And it says security video shows Boelter approaching the front doors of two other lawmakers’ homes dressed as a police officer.

His lawyers have declined to comment on the charges, which could carry the federal death penalty. Thompson said last week that no decision has been made. Minnesota abolished its death penalty in 1911. The Death Penalty Information Center says a federal death penalty case hasn’t been prosecuted in Minnesota in the modern era, as best as it can tell.

Boelter also faces separate murder and attempted murder charges in state court that could carry life without parole, assuming that county prosecutors get their own indictment for first-degree murder. But federal authorities intend to use their power to try Boelter first.

Other victims and alleged targets: Authorities say Boelter shot and wounded Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin before shooting and killing the Hortmans in their home in the northern Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, a few miles away.

Federal prosecutors allege Boelter also stopped at the homes of two other Democratic lawmakers. Prosecutors also say he listed dozens of other Democrats as potential targets, including officials in other states. Friends described Boelter as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views. But prosecutors have declined so far to speculate on a motive.

Former U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, who successfully ran for Congress in 1996 as a crusader for gun control after a mass shooting on a New York commuter train left her husband dead and her son severely wounded, has died. She was 81.

News of her death was shared Thursday by several elected officials on her native Long Island and by Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York State Democratic Committee. Details about her death were not immediately available.

McCarthy went from political novice to one of the nation’s leading advocates for gun control legislation in the aftermath of the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre. However, the suburban New York Democrat found limited success against the National Rifle Association and other Second Amendment advocates.

McCarthy announced in June 2013 that she was undergoing treatment for lung cancer. She announced her retirement in January 2014.

“Mom dedicated her life to transforming personal tragedy into a powerful mission of public service,” her son, Kevin McCarthy, who survived the shooting, told Newsday. “As a tireless advocate, devoted mother, proud grandmother and courageous leader, she changed countless lives for the better. Her legacy of compassion, strength and purpose will never be forgotten.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul directed flags on all state government buildings to be flown at half-staff Friday in honor of the congresswoman.

“Representative Carolyn McCarthy was a strong advocate for gun control and an even more fierce leader,” Hochul said.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi said the nation has “lost a fierce champion.”

“Carolyn channeled her grief and loss into advocacy for change, becoming one of the most dedicated gun violence prevention advocates,” Suozzi said on X.

She became a go-to guest on national TV news shows after each ensuing gun massacre, whether it was at Columbine High School or Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Known as the “gun lady” on Capitol Hill, McCarthy said she couldn’t stop crying after learning that her former colleague, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, had been seriously wounded in a January 2011 shooting in Arizona.

“It’s like a cancer in our society,” she said of gun violence. “And if we keep doing nothing to stop it, it’s only going to spread.”

During one particularly rancorous debate over gun show loopholes in 1999, McCarthy was brought to tears at 1 a.m. on the House floor.

“I am Irish and I am not supposed to cry in front of anyone. But I made a promise a long time ago. I made a promise to my son and to my husband. If there was anything that I could do to prevent one family from going through what I have gone through then I have done my job,” she said.

“Let me go home. Let me go home,” she pleaded.

McCarthy was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island. She became a nurse and later married Dennis McCarthy after meeting on a Long Island beach. They had one son, Kevin, during a tumultuous marriage in which they divorced but reconciled and remarried.

McCarthy was a Republican when, on Dec. 7, 1993, a gunman opened fire on a train car leaving New York City. By the time passengers tackled the shooter, six people were dead and 19 wounded.

She jumped into politics after her GOP congressman voted to repeal an assault weapons ban.

Her surprise victory inspired a made-for-television movie produced by Barbra Streisand. Since that first victory in 1996, McCarthy was never seriously challenged for reelection in a heavily Republican district just east of New York City.

Some critics described McCarthy as a one-issue lawmaker, a contention she bristled about, pointing to interests in improving health care and education. But she was realistic about her legacy on gun control, once telling an interviewer:

“I’ve come to peace with the fact that will be in my obituary.”

NEW YORK — Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas, died Thursday at age 91.

Moyers died in a New York City hospital, according to longtime friend Tom Johnson, the former CEO of CNN and an assistant to Moyers during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. Moyers’ son William said his father died at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York after a “long illness.”

Moyers’ career ranged from youthful Baptist minister to deputy director of the Peace Corps, from Johnson’s press secretary to newspaper publisher, senior news analyst for “The CBS Evening News” and chief correspondent for “CBS Reports.”

But it was for public television that Moyers produced some of TV’s most cerebral and provocative series. In hundreds of hours of PBS programs, he proved at home with subjects ranging from government corruption to modern dance, from drug addiction to media consolidation, from religion to environmental abuse.

In 1988, Moyers produced “The Secret Government” about the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration and simultaneously published a book under the same name. Around that time, he galvanized viewers with “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” a series of six one-hour interviews with the prominent religious scholar. The accompanying book became a bestseller.

His televised chats with poet Robert Bly almost single-handedly launched the 1990s Men’s Movement, and his 1993 series “Healing and the Mind” had a profound impact on the medical community and on medical education.

In a medium that supposedly abhors “talking heads” — shots of subject and interviewer talking — Moyers came to specialize in just that. He once explained why: “The question is, are the talking heads thinking minds and thinking people? Are they interesting to watch? I think the most fascinating production value is the human face.”

(Softly) speaking truth to power: Demonstrating what someone called “a soft, probing style” in the native Texas accent he never lost, Moyers was a humanist who investigated the world with a calm, reasoned perspective, whatever the subject.

From some quarters, he was blasted as a liberal thanks to his links with Johnson and public television, as well as his no-holds-barred approach to investigative journalism. It was a label he didn’t necessarily deny.

“I’m an old-fashion liberal when it comes to being open and being interested in other people’s ideas,” he said during a 2004 radio interview. But Moyers preferred to term himself a “citizen journalist” operating independently, outside the establishment.

Public television (and his self-financed production company) gave him free rein to throw “the conversation of democracy open to all comers,” he said in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press.

“I think my peers in commercial television are talented and devoted journalists,” he said another time, “but they’ve chosen to work in a corporate mainstream that trims their talent to fit the corporate nature of American life. And you do not get rewarded for telling the hard truths about America in a profit-seeking environment.”

Over the years, Moyers was showered with honors, including more than 30 Emmys, 11 George Foster Peabody awards, three George Polks and, twice, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Gold Baton Award for career excellence in broadcast journalism. In 1995, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

From sports to sports writing: Born in Hugo, Oklahoma, on June 5, 1934, Billy Don Moyers was the son of a dirt farmer-truck driver who soon moved his family to Marshall, Texas. High school led him into journalism.

“I wanted to play football, but I was too small. But I found that by writing sports in the school newspaper, the players were always waiting around at the newsstand to see what I wrote,” he recalled.

He worked for the Marshall News Messenger at age 16. Deciding that Bill Moyers was a more appropriate byline for a sportswriter, he dropped the “y” from his name.

He graduated from the University of Texas and earned a master’s in divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was ordained and preached part time at two churches but later decided his call to the ministry “was a wrong number.”

His relationship with Johnson began when he was in college; he wrote the then-senator offering to work in his 1954 reelection campaign. Johnson was impressed and hired him for a summer job. He was back in Johnson’s employ as a personal assistant in the early 1960s and for two years, he worked at the Peace Corps, eventually becoming deputy director.

On the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Moyers was in Austin helping with the presidential trip. He flew back to Washington on Air Force One with newly sworn-in President Johnson, for whom he held various jobs over the ensuing years, including press secretary.

Moyers’ stint as presidential press secretary was marked by efforts to mend the deteriorating relationship between Johnson and the media. But the Vietnam war took its toll and Moyers resigned in December 1966.

Of his departure from the White House, he wrote later, “We had become a war government, not a reform government, and there was no creative role left for me under those circumstances.”

He conceded that he may have been “too zealous in my defense of our policies” and said he regretted criticizing journalists such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Peter Arnett, then a special correspondent with the AP, and CBS’ Morley Safer for their war coverage.

A long run on television: In 1967, Moyers became publisher of Long Island-based Newsday and concentrated on adding news analyses, investigative pieces and lively features. Within three years, the suburban daily had won two Pulitzers. He left the paper in 1970 after the ownership changed. That summer, he traveled 13,000 miles around the country and wrote a bestselling account of his odyssey: “Listening to America: a Traveler Rediscovers His Country.”

His next venture was in public television and he won critical acclaim for “Bill Moyers Journal,” a series in which interviews ranged from Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish economist, to poet Maya Angelou. He was chief correspondent of “CBS Reports” from 1976 to 1978, went back to PBS for three years, and then was senior news analyst for CBS from 1981 to 1986.

When CBS cut back on documentaries, he returned to PBS for much less money. “If you have a skill that you can fold with your tent and go wherever you feel you have to go, you can follow your heart’s desire,” he once said.

Then in 1986, he and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, became their own bosses by forming Public Affairs Television, an independent shop that has not only produced programs such as the 10-hour “In Search of the Constitution,” but also paid for them through its own fundraising efforts.

His projects in the 21st century included “Now,” a weekly PBS public affairs program; a new edition of “Bill Moyers Journal” and a podcast covering racism, voting rights and the rise of Donald Trump, among other subjects.

Moyers married Judith Davidson, a college classmate, in 1954, and they raised three children, among them the author Suzanne Moyers and author-TV producer William Cope Moyers. Judith eventually became her husband’s partner, creative collaborator and president of their production company.

House GOP committees have issued new subpoenas to ActBlue, intensifying their probe of the Democratic fundraising platform.

The subpoenas are an attempt to force cooperation as ActBlue has pushed back on the congressional investigation, questioning its intentions and constitutionality after the White House launched a similar probe.

Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.), Bryan Steil (R-Wisc.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who lead the committees investigating ActBlue, issued the subpoenas Wednesday to compel a current and a former employee to testify about the platform’s fraud prevention policies.

The employees being subpoenaed had previously pushed back against voluntarily appearing before the committee, citing the White House’s investigation, and ActBlue sent the committee a defiant letter earlier this month criticizing the investigation as partisan. In subpoenaing the employees, the GOP lawmakers rejected ActBlue’s argument that the congressional investigation is being conducted at the behest of the White House probe.

ActBlue had slammed the congressional investigations in a letter this month as a “partisan effort directed at harming political opponents rather than gathering facts to assist in lawmaking efforts.” The platform and its Democratic defenders have argued that any probe into foreign donations and online fundraising should also include WinRed, the largest Republican fundraising platform.

Those Democratic complaints grew louder after President Donald Trump in April ordered the Justice Department to investigate foreign straw donations in online fundraising, citing in part the work done by the GOP-led congressional committees. That investigation is expected to carry into the fall — and ActBlue was the only company named in Trump’s order.

In the new subpoenas, however, the GOP lawmakers argue the committee is operating well within its rights, and that testimony from ActBlue could inform future campaign finance legislation. They say the House investigation is distinct from the Trump-ordered probe into the platform and that their committees have not provided any non-public information to the Justice Department.

The lawmakers also rejected ActBlue’s argument that the Constitution protects it from cooperation with the probe.

“Congress is free to choose how to conduct oversight, including which entities to examine and in what manner. A Congressional committee's decision to examine one entity and not another does not violate the Equal Protection Clause,” one of the subpoenas reads.

In a statement, ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones assailed the subpoenas as “political theater” that would “give Shakespeare a run for his money.”

“The Republican-led committees have also not addressed ActBlue’s legitimate concerns about the partisan and parallel inquiries by separate branches of the government being waged against President Trump’s and MAGA Republicans’ political opponents,” Wallace-Jones said.

ActBlue previously provided documents to the GOP committees, some voluntarily and some under subpoena. The congressional committees asked for voluntary interviews with ActBlue employees in April, according to the latest subpoenas, but the employees balked, citing in part the Justice Department probe.

Republicans have frequently leveraged their committee gavels this Congress to go after Democratic officials, including mayors and governors. The House Oversight Committee is also investigating former President Joe Biden’s mental acuity while in the White House, amid a similar probe by the Trump administration. Comer has issued a subpoena to Biden’s physician and asked a number of former top White House aides to sit down with his panel.