Can you monitor a situation without monitors? The Polymarket sports bar tried / Plus, a Project 2025 splinter group declares war on AI — and a16z.
March 25, 2026
I was taking Friday off in Maine when two major pieces of tech news dropped: first, the White House released its framework for a comprehensive national AI bill with the intent of passing it through Congress. (Hayden Field, our AI reporter, has a thorough analysis of it here.) Second (and clearly more important), Polymarket opened the Situation Room, a pop-up bar in Mount Vernon Triangle that was supposed to be a room for “monitoring the situation” on, literally, a wall of television screens.
According to a report from NBC Washington’s Gary Grumbach, it did not go well at all. Friday apparently got off to a poor start, closing at 9PM due the giant wall of situation-monitoring television screens —the very point of the bar — not working. (The screens were still on the fritz on Saturday afternoon, and according to Wired reporter Makena Kelly, Polymarket provided guests free Champagne as an apology.)
