Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Maria yesterday. Photo: Hector Emanuel for Axios
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi sat down with Maria at Axios' News Shapers event on Wednesday, weighing in on what's next for TikTok, export controls and more.
The big picture: Krishnamoorthi has been reappointed as the ranking member of the House China Select Committee for this Congress, and is set to keep playing a leading role investigating and shaping legislation related to Beijing.
- He introduced the TikTok sale-or-ban bill last year, and President Trump issued an executive order to stop enforcement until early April.
Here are some key quotes from Maria's conversation with Krishnamoorthi.
On TikTok: "I expect that a sale will happen and I hope that the president brokers the sale."
- "You said Oracle is hosting TikTok now. But on the other hand, TikTok is not in the Apple or Google Play store. And so different companies are kind of doing different things."
- "All that being said, right now, the best conclusion will be for ByteDance to sell TikTok and the CCP has opened the door for that."
Export controls: "I'd like to see some of those export controls and those outbound investment restrictions that were executive orders under the Biden administration actually become legislation."
- "And there is a lot of activity in that regard on a bipartisan basis."
- "The outbound legislation that almost made it into the CR in December is now the subject of negotiation again."
DOGE: "I think that the idea of a Department of Government Efficiency and making government more efficient makes all the sense in the world."
- "However, if we're going to have a situation where DOGE again is going to make decisions about AI policy or make decisions about quantum that favor certain incumbents or that isn't conducted in a transparent way, that's when we have problems."
