Brendan Bordelon

A Christmas Day social media brawl between President-elect Donald Trump’s backers in Silicon Valley and the MAGA base highlighted the looming battle facing the incoming White House and Congress over high-skilled immigration. Early conversations are already taking place on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers are openly mulling new plans to boost numbers of high-tech immigrants as Elon Musk and other tech billionaires—including many who have named skilled immigration a priority—flex their expanding influence on Trump and the GOP.

From a tight Senate race in Arizona to congressional contests in Texas and Illinois, Democratic candidates are wrapping their arms around Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. But one candidate is keeping Khan at arm’s length. Vice President Kamala Harris has declined to appear with Khan or campaign on her energetic antitrust agenda — much less defend the FTC chair against a chorus of Silicon Valley donors calling for her head, or Khan’s GOP critics on Capitol Hill.

On the surface, the apologetic letter Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent to congressional Republicans on Monday looks like a capitulation in the long-simmering political wars

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr called publicly for the Federal Trade Commission to open an investigation into the nonprofit Crisis Text Line (CTL) over the suicide hotline’s former data-sharing practices with for-profit spinoff Loris.ai.

President Biden has yet to announce his pick for inspector general for the Federal Communications Commission. That position, which is meant to audit FCC spending and investigate potential fraud and abuse, is set to assume new significance, with billions of dollars in pandemic relief and infrastructure cash now flowing into the agency.

Senate Democrats likely won’t be setting up floor votes this week on President Biden’s long-pending Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission nominees, according to Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA). “We’re missing a few people,” she said, citing the absence of Sen Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) due to COVID-19, as well as a few other Democrats.

President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson hinted she may be open to a more expansive reading of antitrust laws during her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 23.

In a series of confirmation hearings starting March 21, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will question Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s pick to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court — and while tech policy is not expected to be a major area of focus for either party, two issues in particular could come up. Critics of the tech industry’s treasured liability shield often claim judges have interpreted Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act too broadly.

A coalition of 55 consumer advocacy groups sent a letter to House Judiciary Leadership on March 16 urging the lawmakers to hold a legislative hearing on the Freedom to Repair Act (

House Republicans’ “Big Tech Censorship and Data Task Force” presented its preliminary proposals to rein in major tech companies on March 16 — and a significant antitrust overhaul is not particularly high on the agenda. The task force, established in 2021 by Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and led by Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), is developing proposals on Section 230 reform and privacy for the GOP to mobilize around if the party takes back the lower chamber in November 2022.