Know What You're Talking About Before You Talk About It Act

Section 1. Short Title and Findings of Willful Ignorance

This Act may be cited as the “Know What You’re Talking About Before You Talk About It Act” or the “Maybe Read the Briefing Before the Broadcast Act of 2026.”

The House finds and reluctantly documents:

(a) Members of Congress are provided access to classified intelligence briefings that contain information relevant to the security of 330 million Americans, and a meaningful percentage of those members do not attend these briefings, despite being paid $174,000 per year to do so.

(b) The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s model daily schedule for new members allocates approximately four hours per day to fundraising calls, one to two hours to constituent meetings, and a conspicuously unspecified amount of time to actually learning about matters of national significance.

(c) Committee attendance records are not made publicly available by either chamber, while campaign fundraising totals are reported quarterly to the Federal Election Commission. Congress has effectively decided that how much money a member raises is public information, but whether they show up to work is not.

(d) Multiple members of Congress have appeared on cable news programs to discuss classified intelligence matters within hours of skipping the classified briefing on those same matters, a practice that would result in termination in any other profession that involves reading before speaking.

(e) The Gang of Eight — the eight congressional leaders who receive the most sensitive intelligence briefings — are the only members guaranteed access to the most classified information, and the American public has no way of knowing whether any of them actually attend.

Section 2. The Briefing-Before-Broadcasting Requirement

2(a). General Mandate

No member of Congress who serves on the Intelligence Committee, Armed Services Committee, or Foreign Affairs Committee shall appear on any broadcast media program to discuss matters of national security, intelligence, or foreign policy unless that member has attended at least 75% of scheduled classified briefings in the current session.

2(b). Definition of “Attended”

For the purposes of this section, “attended” means physically present for the duration of the briefing, not:

1. Sending a staffer to “take notes”
2. Arriving 45 minutes late and asking the briefer to “give me the highlights”
3. Being present in the building but in the call-time room across the hall
4. Reading the one-page summary distributed to members who did not attend, which is itself a tacit acknowledgment that many members do not attend

2(c). Grace Period

New members shall have a 90-day grace period to establish their attendance record, during which they are permitted to appear on television and say “I’m new here and still getting up to speed,” which is at least honest.

Section 3. The Cable News Commentary License

3(a). Establishment

There is hereby established a Cable News Commentary License (CNCL), which shall be required for any member of Congress wishing to appear on broadcast or cable television to discuss classified or intelligence-related matters.

3(b). License Requirements

To obtain a CNCL, a member must:

1. Attend at least 75% of scheduled intelligence briefings
2. Pass a basic comprehension quiz on the most recent briefing (open-note, which should not be difficult and yet)
3. Demonstrate the ability to distinguish between “information I learned in a classified setting” and “something I saw on cable news last night”
4. Acknowledge in writing that the phrase “sources familiar with the matter” does not mean “the TV anchor I watched this morning”

3(c). License Revocation

A CNCL shall be revoked if a member is found to have:

• Discussed classified information on live television (which has happened)
• Cited a cable news segment as intelligence during a committee hearing (which has also happened)
• Appeared on more cable news programs in a month than briefings attended in a quarter (which describes most members)

Section 4. The “I Read the Summary” Disqualification

4(a). Executive Summary Exception Eliminated

Reading only the executive summary of a classified briefing shall not qualify as attendance. The committee notes that executive summaries exist because members do not attend, and accepting them as a substitute would defeat the purpose of the briefing, the summary, and this Act.

4(b). The Two-Paragraph Threshold

Any member who has read only the first two paragraphs of a briefing document — which internal surveys suggest describes the median reading depth — shall be required to disclose this when asked about the matter, using the phrase: “I have reviewed some of the available materials.”

Section 5. The Fundraising vs. Legislating Time Audit

5(a). Quarterly Disclosure

Each member serving on a national security-related committee shall file quarterly reports disclosing:

1. Total hours spent in fundraising activities (including call time, donor meetings, and fundraising events)
2. Total hours spent in classified briefings, committee hearings, and bill markup sessions
3. Total hours spent on cable news, talk radio, or podcast appearances discussing national security
4. The ratio between items 1 and 2, expressed as a simple fraction, so the American public can see it clearly

5(b). Publication

These ratios shall be published on each member’s official congressional website, adjacent to their committee assignments, so that voters may evaluate whether their representative is spending more time learning about threats to the nation or raising money.

Section 6. Effective Date and Expected Compliance

This Act shall take effect upon enactment, though the committee anticipates that compliance will be approximately as high as current briefing attendance — which is to say, the committee is not optimistic.

Committee Note: This bill was reported out of the Select Committee by a vote of 3-8. The three votes in favor came from the three members who had attended the committee hearing. The eight votes against were cast by proxy. Five of the eight dissenting members were, at the time of the vote, appearing on cable news to discuss an intelligence matter they had not been briefed on. The committee chair noted the irony. Nobody else noticed, because they were not in the room.

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This bill failed 8-427 in the full House, the worst margin of any legislation introduced this session. The 8 members who voted in favor were subsequently invited to appear on cable news to discuss the bill’s failure, but declined, stating they had briefings to attend. The 427 members who voted against it appeared on a combined 1,284 cable news segments in the following week, many of which included the phrase “I can’t discuss classified details, but…” followed by the classified details.