'Single greatest threat': Ted Cruz defiant after Trump attempts to curb his subpoena power

29 January

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is now in a standoff with President Donald Trump, and it could be due to pressure from Trump's new friends in the tech sector.

Punchbowl News recently reported that Trump is working behind the scenes to prevent Cruz — who is now the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation — from having expanded subpoena powers. Cruz is seeking to have the ability to unilaterally issue subpoenas as chairman, rather than to have to rely on consent from the committee's ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) or a full committee vote.

The committee was scheduled to vote on the proposal during a markup session this week, though that meeting was delayed due to attendance issues, as Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) was sick. But now the White House is reportedly urging Republicans to vote against giving Cruz unilateral subpoena powers, which it believes he will use to bring tech executives before the committee who helped Trump win the 2024 election.

According to Punchbowl reporter Andrew Desiderio, one unnamed Commerce Committee aide pointed out that the Trump White House was notably silent when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — who chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs — sought similar powers. And Desiderio noted that Cruz "wants to go after Big Tech in his new role as Commerce chair" while "Trump has embraced tech CEOs."

"I believe Big Tech censorship poses the single greatest threat to free speech in this country, and the committee will use every available tool to engage in that oversight," Cruz told Punchbowl.

Spectrum News reported Wednesday that Cruz acknowledged that many tech CEOs, including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos were all at the inauguration, and that Trump has warmed to the tech sector.

“As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, my approach is going to be Ronald Reagan’s old approach of trust, but verify. I’m going to hold them to account. We’re going to fight to defend Americans’ free speech rights,” the Texas Republican said. “I will welcome them doing the right thing. I will welcome them defending free speech. That’s what they need to do.”

Click here to read Punchbowl's full report (subscription required).

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