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.”
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley rescheduled a planned vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general late Friday in a preemptive move as negotiations between the Trump administration and GOP holdouts continue.
The vote, now set for Tuesday after a scheduled Thursday vote was postponed, isn’t an indication that a deal allowing for Blanche’s confirmation is near, so much as it is a nod to Judiciary Committee rules that require three days of notice for a panel meeting.
There is no sign that President Donald Trump is about to acquiesce to the unflinching demands of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who wants a controversial settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS substantially pared back.
Cornyn, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed candidate, wants the Justice Department to nullify a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and limit the scope of a tax audit immunity component of the pact.
Trump told reporters earlier Friday the fund is “dead” but added “I wish it weren’t.”
“I’d like to see them compensated,” he added, referring to people he considers victims of government abuse, including participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
To advance Tuesday, Blanche needs to pick up Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another senator on the panel with similar concerns. He can’t lose any GOP votes if he wants to be reported favorably out of the Judiciary Committee.
“Chairman Grassley wants Todd Blanche’s nomination to be successful,” said a Judiciary Committee spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Noticing the markup gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee. Grassley would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess as he has an excellent record restoring law and order and keeping Americans safe.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.
Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.
Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.
After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.
He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.
President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.
Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.
“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.
Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.
“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”
On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.
“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.
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