Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is one of TikTok's loudest critics, arguing that its data collection practices put U.S. national security at risk.

• He also was one of the first to applaud yesterday's House vote on a bill that requires ByteDance to divest TikTok, or else risk the app from being banned.
• But he doesn't have much faith that there will be a similar vote in the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is noncommittal about bringing it to the floor (despite support from President Biden).

I spoke with Hawley via phone yesterday afternoon, and here are five excerpts from our conversation:

1. Prospects in the Senate, where some have objected to the House language:

• "I'd be fine taking [the House bill] up verbatim. But if folks want to take it up an amend it, we can. ... My observation is that people say: 'I agree with the idea in principle but have concerns.' That basically means we should never do anything. What we're likely to see happen in the Senate is people will nickel-and-dime it, a death by a thousand cuts. Nothing that Big Tech doesn't want moves across the Senate floor."

2. His security concern is data, not a propagandized algorithm:

• "The app collects way more information than it needs to to feed its algorithm, and that information is available to the Chinese Communist Party upon request. ... I don't think we want Americans' text messages to be read, or their geolocations to be available to the CCP, so it can build a dossier on every American. ... Maybe that's to feed its own AI or for some other reason, but it is a hostile foreign government that's been behind hacks of other U.S. citizen information."
• "It's not really what's on the platform itself ... that's a red herring."

3. Would China allow a divestiture?

• "It's a good question. If it doesn't, that would show how important this app and its algorithm really are."

4. Would Hawley support TikTok being sold to a U.S. tech giant?

• "I'd certainly oppose one of the monopolistic tech companies, like Meta or Google, from buying it. I think we ought to be breaking those companies up."
• (Note: Our conversation happened before former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he's putting together an investor group to buy TikTok, apparently similar to what former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is doing.)

5. His message to creators who make a living on TikTok.

• "There's a reason TikTok is so popular, and it's not because it's a spy app. It's because of the design of the platform and the algorithm. Whether or not TikTok itself is purchased, many will try to compete ... and what we really should hope for is that competition, which would create increased opportunity for creators."
• "TikTok is essentially using American creators as a shield when it's not an American company."

President Biden today is expected to express concerns over Nippon Steel's planned $14.9 billion acquisition of Pittsburgh's U.S. Steel, ahead of next month's White House visit by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Why it's the BFD: U.S. Steel picked Japan's Nippon over domestic rival Cleveland-Cliffs, because it preferred a national security review by CFIUS to an antitrust review by the Justice Department.

• Were CFIUS to oppose the acquisition, its recommendation would go directly to Biden.

What he'll say: "U.S. Steel has been an iconic American steel company for more than a century, and it is vital for it to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated."

The bottom line: Biden is playing to his labor union base, as the USW had preferred Cleveland-Cliffs. But it remains unlikely that CFIUS will recommend he block the deal, given that Japan is a strategic U.S. ally.

• Luminary Cloud, a San Mateo, Calif.-based real-time engineering SaaS, raised $115m led by Sutter Hill Ventures. www.luminarycloud.com

• Together AI, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based Nvidia chip reseller and trainer,raised $106m at a $1.25b valuation. Salesforce Ventures led, and was joined by Coatue and insiders Lux Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Emergence Capital, Prosperity7 Ventures, NEA, Greycroft, Definition Capital, Long Journey Ventures, Factory, Scott Banister, and SV Angel. https://axios.link/3v8EoKw

• PPRO, a London-based payments platform, raised €85m from Eurazeo, HPE Growth, Sprints, PayPal Ventures, JPMorgan, Citi Ventures, and BlackRock. https://axios.link/3Ty8i43

• Unstructured, an SF-based provider of LLM data preprocessing solutions, raised $40m in Series B funding. Menlo Ventures led, and was joined by Databricks Ventures, IBM Ventures, NVentures, Vivek Ranadivé, Chet Kapoor, Allison Pickens, and insiders Madrona, Bain Capital Ventures, and Mango Capital. www.unstructured.io

🚑 HiLabs, a Bethesda, Md.-based health care data mining startup, raised $39m in Series B funding, per Axios Pro. Eight Roads and Denali Growth Partners co-led, and were joined by F-Prime Capital. https://axios.link/3PiV0WA

🚑 Relation Therapeutics, a London-based drug discovery platform focused on osteoporosis, raised $35m from NVentures, DCVC, Deerfield Management, Khosla Ventures, ARK Invest and Magnetic Ventures. https://axios.link/3Ppddlt

• TheyDo, a Dutch provider of customer journey mapping software, raised $34m in Series B funding, per Axios Pro. Blossom Capital led, and was joined by Arches Capital and Innovation Quarter. https://axios.link/3wQg2Wl

• DraftWise, a New York-based contract and negotiation platform for lawyers, raised $20m in Series A funding. Index Ventures led, and was joined by insiders YC and Earlybird Digital East Ventures. www.draftwise.com

• Lago, a French open-source billing platform, raised $22m in seed and Series A funding from FirstMark, SignalFire, Addition, YC, New Wave, and Script. https://axios.link/43gW7ff

• Lily AI, a Mountain View, Calif.-based e-commerce product discovery platform, raised $20m in Series B funding. Conductive Ventures led, and was joined by Counterpart Ventures, Cendana Capital, Transform Capital, Sorenson Capital, and NEA. https://axios.link/3v2KDQ6

• Simera Sense, a Belgian supplier of optical imaging tech for Earth-observation satellites, raised €13.5m from NewSpace Capital and Knife Capital. https://axios.link/4cfLj5q

🚑 Proscia, a Philadelphia-based provider of digital pathology software, raised $9m in Series C extension funding from Highline Capital Management and Triangle Peak Partners. www.proscia.com

• Necture, an Austrian EV fleet management startup, raised €7m in Series A funding. Smart Energy Innovationsfonds and Verbund X Ventures co-led, and were joined by insiders Speedinvest and Smartworks Innovation. https://axios.link/3wUkB1Z

🌎 Furno, a Mountain View, Calif.-based cement decarbonization startup, raised $6.5m in seed funding. Energy Capital Ventures led, and was joined by O'Shaughnessy Ventures, Cantos, and Neotribe. https://axios.link/3TfcC78

• Blockus, a web3 gaming tech stack and payments provider, raised $4m in pre-seed funding led by Maple VC. https://axios.link/3VfKQdo

🚑 Assort Health, an SF-based developer of conversational AI for call centers, raised $3.5m in seed funding, per Axios Pro. Quiet Capital led, and was joined by Four Acres Capital, Pioneer Fund, Strategic Waterfall Partners, and Tau Ventures. https://axios.link/3VnGUHD

• The New Club, a network of female technologists, raised $3.1m. Sierra Ventures and Afore Capital co-led, and were joined by Operator Collective, Precursor Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, and Stanford GSB's 2021 Fund. www.thenewclub.fyi

• Eyris, a developer of blockchain-based ransomware security, raised $3m in pre-seed funding from Red Cell Partners. www.eyris.tech

• Youverify, a Nigerian ID verification and AML startup, raised $2.5m from Elm. https://axios.link/3PhvsJF

• Monad, a Clifton, N.J.-based blockchain developer, is in talks to raise $200m led by Paradigm, per Fortune. https://axios.link/4a65dh8

• Adenia Partners agreed to buy 12 subsidiaries of industrial and medical gasses provider Air Liquide (Paris: AI), all based in West Africa, Central Africa and in the Indian Ocean. https://axios.link/43xXarD

• Cerberus Capital Management is the frontrunner to buy Polish lender VeloBank, per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/4aeUelt

• CertaSite, an acquisition platform of The Riverside Co., acquired Weber, a St. Louis-based fire protection business. www.certasitepro.com

• H.I.G. Capital agreed to buy Valeo's (Paris: PAR) thermal commercial vehicles unit, which is based in Germany. www.hig.com

🚑 Kayne Anderson acquired a majority stake in TeleMed2U, a Roseville, Calif.-based provider of telemedicine solutions. www.telemed2u.com

⚡ KKR offered to buy listed German electricity provider Encavis for €2.8b. https://axios.link/3Vd6fnt

• RedBird IMI's deal to co-led a takeover of the Telegraph newspaper is likely to be felled by a pending U.K. law to block foreign takeovers of British news publications. https://axios.link/3PlpAzc

• Rocscience, a Toronto-based portfolio company of TA Associates, acquired 3GSM, an Austrian provider of geologic mapping software. www.roscience.com

⚡ Stonepeak agreed to buy a stake in four U.S. onshore wind farms from Denmark's Ørsted for $300 million. https://axios.link/48VvuxR

• Zendesk, a portfolio company of Hellman & Friedman and Permira, agreed to buy Ultimate, a German customer automation startup that had raised around $40m from firms like OMERS Ventures and Maki.vc. https://axios.link/48NSCyh

🍺 Altria Group (NYSE: MO) plans to sell around 35 million shares in Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD), cutting down its 10% stake by around 18%, in an effort to generate around $2b. https://axios.link/3wWsF2g

🚑 Auna, an operator of hospitals and health care plans in Peru, Colombia, and Mexico, set IPO terms to 30m shares at $13-$15. It would have a $1.1b market cap at the top of its range, plans to list on the NYSE (AUNA) and is controlled by Enfoca. https://axios.link/48TaEiG

• Coforge, an India-listed IT services company, withdrew registration for a NYSE float that Renaissance Capital estimated could raise around $750m. https://axios.link/3TgpJVx

🚑 PACS Group, a Farmington, Utah-based post-acute care provider, filed for an IPO that Renaissance Capital estimates could raise $500m. It plans to list on the NYSE (PACS), and reports $113m in 2023 profit on $3.1b in revenue. https://axios.link/49O5d5G

• Solera, a Westlake, Texas-based vehicle lifecycle management software provider owned by Vista Equity Partners, is interviewing banks about a U.S. IPO, per Reuters. https://axios.link/3wVvb8Z

🚑 AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) agreed to buy Amolyt Pharma, a French developer of therapeutic peptides for rare endocrine diseases, for $1.05b in cash.

• Amolyt had raised nearly $300m from firms like Sofinnova Partners, ICG, Tekla Capital Investment, CTI Life Sciences, Andera Partners, Novo Holdings, Kurma Partners, EQT Life Sciences, Innobio, Sectoral Asset Management, Pontifax, Orbimed, Mass General Brigham Ventures, ATEM, Credit Agricole Creation, and Turenne Capital. https://axios.link/3IzAoG7

🚑 Atlantic Street and Linden Capital Partners are nearing a deal to sell Prescott's, a medical device and lab equipment maker, per Axios Pro. https://axios.link/3IBv9FG

• Vista Equity Partners is exploring a sale of LogicMonitor, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based IT infrastructure monitoring company that could fetch $1.5b (including debt), per Bloomberg. https://axios.link/3TwuNq9

• Wiz, a New York cloud security firm valued by VCs at $10.3b, agreed to buy Gem Security for $350m in cash. Gem is an Israeli cloud detection and response startup that raised $34m from GGV Capital, Team8, IBM Ventures and Silicon Valley CISO Investments. https://axios.link/4a7dVvu

• Canyon Partners, a Dallas-based alt investment firm with $24b in AUM, agreed to sell a 19.9% stake in itself to Japanese life insurer Dai-ichi Life (Tokyo: 8750). https://axios.link/49RgDpr

• Paramount Global (Nasdaq: PARA) agreed to sell its 13% stake in India's Viacom18 Media to Reliance Industries for $517m. https://axios.link/3Tf6egg

🚑 Spring Health, a behavioral health provider valued by VCs at $2.5b, acquired the therapy tools and digital content of Bloom, an New York-based cognitive behavioral therapy startup. www.springhealth.com

• The Chickasaw Nation, an Oklahoma-based Native American tribe, formed Pennington Creek Capital, a Dallas-based private equity firm led by Curt Crofford, formerly of Hicks Equity Partners. https://axios.link/3vi5Ghp

• Elaia, a French VC firm, secured €60m for its deep tech seed fund, which is targeting a total of €120m, per TechCrunch. https://axios.link/3v2Dxeq

• Rob Sarrow joined crypto-focused VC firm Volt Capital. He previously was with Delphi Digital. https://axios.link/3v9lXFs

• Lila Tretikov, Microsoft's former deputy CTO, joined venture firm NEA as a partner and head of AI strategy. www.nea.com

Bitcoin his another all-time high this week, at one point crossing the $73,000 mark.

• But it should keep going higher, if history repeats itself, writes Axios' Brady Dale.