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, currently owned by ByteDance, a 75-day reprieve.
“We don’t want to ban TikTok. But we don’t the Chinese Communist Party owning TikTok through ByteDance,” said Guthrie, who voted for the bill in the last Congress.
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.”
