Congress
E&C Chair Guthrie talks TikTok, AI, privacy
House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie said Thursday he’s in favor of President Donald Trump’s decision to extend the deadline for TikTok to divest from Chinese ownership.
“Giving him a window of opportunity to make significant progress — I support that,” said the Kentucky Republican in his first public comments on Trump’s actions. “I also understand the confines that we have in the law.”
Guthrie’s comments are notable in that his panel, then chaired by retired Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), led the charge last year to pass legislation, 50-0, to force TikTok to find a new buyer by a certain deadline or shut down. The bill included language allowing for a 90-day extension if “significant progress” could be cited in the efforts.
The Supreme Court last Friday ruled that Congress’s law didn’t violate the First Amendment, effectively allowing a ban to go into effect without a deal in place by the deadline. On Monday, hours after taking office, Trump issued an executive order giving the widely popular social media app a 75-day reprieve.
Guthrie’s deference to Trump could be a sign of how he, himself the new chair of a committee with perhaps the broadest jurisdiction in Congress, plans to run the panel through which some of the Trump administration’s biggest priorities must pass.
Since the start of the 119th Congress, Guthrie has been giving presentations and holding member meetings about the Energy and Commerce Committee’s role in finding cost savings to pay for the conservative policy priorities Trump wants included in the GOP’s major tax, energy and border security bill.
In an extended interview on Thursday, Guthrie conceded preparations for the budget reconciliation process has been taking up much of his time, but that he is eying hearings down the road on what energy usage will be necessary for expanding artificial intelligence capabilities.
As companies across sectors rely more on the energy-intensive technology, Guthrie said, there are concerns about data centers stretching the grids thin. The issue fits into his larger goal of bolstering American energy production and countering China.
“We want to make sure we have hearings and make people understand the energy demands and what it’s going to take,” Guthrie said. “I’m all in because we absolutely cannot give this industry over to China.”
Guthrie also said he’s hopeful for an opportunity to pick up where Rodgers left off in trying to find a bipartisan agreement around bolstering health care price transparency, and separately, the Kids Online Safety Act.
That legislation, which had broad bipartisan support in the House and Senate, would have strengthened data privacy for younger internet users and held online providers accountable for not inundating minors with certain negative web content.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson said in December the legislation needed more work, leaving the door open for a deal early this year.
Guthrie said he hadn’t sat down with colleagues to discuss details.
“Do you do one overall privacy bill with KOSA, or do you separate the two bills?” said Guthrie. “We’re still trying to make that decision.”
DALLAS — Rep. Jim Jordan said Wednesday he plans to end his eight-year run leading Republicans on two of the House’s most prominent committees after this Congress, raising fresh questions about what comes next for the veteran Ohio lawmaker.
Jordan, 62, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Republican midterm convention that he has no plans to seek a waiver of the GOP’s three-term limit on committee leaders to retain the top spot on the Judiciary Committee.
Nor, he said, would he seek to return to lead Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. He previously served as ranking member from 2019 to 2020, when he took the GOP reins at Judiciary, and has at least two terms of eligibility remaining there.
“No, I don’t plan to do that,” Jordan said. “There’s other people who are very interested in Oversight.”
Jordan could have requested a waiver from the House Republican Steering Committee, and several other sitting GOP chairs — including Agriculture’s G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) and Armed Services’ Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) — are expected to do just that. He brushed off questions about why we would not join others in seeking to keep the coveted gavel overseeing the Justice Department, immigration law and other high-profile matters.
“I’m just not going to do it,” he said.
The decision is likely to stoke speculation about another potential leadership run for Jordan, who is seeking his 11th term this fall. He unsuccessfully sought the speakership after Kevin McCarthy’s 2023 ouster, and there has been open chatter in recent months that he is quietly setting the grounds to make another run at the top job.
After flatly denying plans to retain a committee gavel, Jordan was far less direct in addressing other questions about his future in the House.
“I’m focused on one thing, one thing only: winning,” he said. “If the left wins, where they want to take the country is very, very scary.”
Jordan, for instance, did not rule out running against Speaker Mike Johnson for the gavel if Republicans hold onto House majority this fall.
“As I said, I’m focused on winning. We got to win,” he said when asked if he could challenge Johnson, adding “that’s why I’ve been … in 15 different states, and so we just keep going to help our colleagues and candidates.”
Jordan only serves on the Judiciary and Oversight committees, and it is rare for veteran Republican members who are term-limited out of committee leadership posts to stick around as back-benchers in the House.
Jordan did not criticize his fellow chairs who are seeking waivers: “They want a waiver, that’s fine. It’s been granted in the past, and sometimes they get them, sometimes they don’t,” he said, noting it was “up to the conference and the steering committee.”
Asked if he would stay in Congress without a committee or conference leadership position, he noted he is running for reelection: “I’m going to go represent the people in the 4th District.”
Asked a final time what’s next for his decadeslong political career, Jordan chuckled and went through his plans for the day.
“I got like three more interviews,” Jordan said. “And then I’m going to go sit down in that suite, and we’ve got to have some popcorn and watch the speeches. I think that’s what’s next for me.”
Rep. Bobby Scott is defending his track record leading Democrats on the House Education and Workforce Committee in a new letter as he faces an internal challenge for the top job.
In a Dear Colleague letter dated Wednesday, the 79-year-old Virginian said he is running to keep the top spot on the committee, guaranteeing a showdown with fellow Democratic Rep. Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, a 53-year-old former teacher.
Scott has led the panel’s Democrats since 2015, including four years as chair during his party’s time in the majority from 2019 to 2023. He said in the latter that he looks forward to again holding the gavel of the Education and Labor Committee, as it is traditionally named under Democratic majorities.
“In this moment, we need a leader with a proven record of confronting and thwarting a dangerous President, a leader who will conduct rigorous oversight without fear or favor,” Scott said in the letter. “We also need a leader who will advance legislation grounded in evidence and data, restore and expand programs people need not only to survive but to thrive, and ensure we have a government that is truly accountable to the people. My track record speaks for itself.”
He made reference to one critique of his leadership — that he is a relatively low-profile presence inside the Democratic caucus: “While I have no qualms about sharing the spotlight with my colleagues, I want to be clear that my colleagues should not confuse my humility with an inability to deliver results.”
Blue Light News first reported Hayes’ interest in challenging Scott last week. She said in an interview that there needs to be a “push from the caucus” to counter President Donald Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Education Department.
“We are going to lift our heads up, and the Department of Education is going to be gone,” Hayes said. “I think that as a caucus and as a country, that should be a part of our priorities and a part of our agenda because it is incredibly important.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will host a private briefing for senators next week with top artificial intelligence researchers, according to a letter to colleagues obtained by Blue Light News.
The meeting, slated for 4 p.m. on Sept. 16, comes as concerns grow on both sides of the aisle about safety warnings from top AI labs and researchers about the technology’s growing capabilities.
“Congress needs SERIOUS discussions about this issue,” Sanders wrote. “That is why I will be convening a private briefing with some of the leading experts in the world to discuss this recent incident and the extraordinary dangers that AI poses for humanity.”
Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as the “godfather of AI,” is expected to brief the lawmakers alongside MIT professor and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute Max Tegmark and Ajeya Cotra, an independent investigator who helped probe helped probe OpenAI agents’ recent autonomous attack on the tech platform Hugging Face.
Sanders has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI, calling last week for a pause in AI development until a vetting regime can be stood up and a complete ban on superintelligence, a type of AI that may exceed humans’ cognitive capabilities.
Axios first reported details of the briefing.
- Republicans are partying in Dallas. Just don’t ask them about affordability.
- Jim Jordan says he will relinquish Judiciary gavel, pass on a return to Oversight
- Bobby Scott defends his track record amid fight to keep committee post
- Sanders to host AI briefing for senators
- Cruz says guardrails needed after dire AI warning
- Key oil benchmark tops $100 a barrel for first time since July, as midterms loom
- Lawmakers urge Congress to act after AI researcher’s dire warning
- ‘No good options’: GOP’s midterm hopes suffer under energy inflation
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