Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) singled out Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan as one of the sole Biden administration members “doing a pretty good job,” citing her work on antitrust enforcement, especially as it relates to tech giants.
“A lot of my Republican colleagues look at Lina Khan … and they say, ‘well Lina Khan is sort of engaged in some sort of fundamental evil thing. And I guess I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job,” Vance said Tuesday at Bloomberg’s “RemedyFest” technology forum.
Vance acknowledged that supporting Khan’s aggressive antitrust enforcement, especially against tech firms, sets him apart from “most of” his Republican colleagues.
“But the fundamental question to me is how do we build a competitive marketplace, that is pro-innovation, pro-competition, that allows consumers to have the right choices and isn’t just so obsessed on pricing power within the market that it ignores all the other things that really matter,” Vance said.
Khan was confirmed to the FTC in 2021 with support from some Republicans. She was named to be chair of the commission shortly after her confirmation.
Since then, she’s faced fierce pushback and criticism from a wide swath of Republicans who have questioned how she is using the commission’s authority.
But Vance, one of a few vocal Republican supporters of antitrust reform, said he appreciates that Khan‘s approach embraces a “broader understanding of how we think about competition in the marketplace.”
At the same time, though, he said there is a potential for the “strange bedfellows” on the issue to reach a point where the bipartisan agreement goes “off the rails” as it relates to how users absorb and acquire information.
Vance, like many on the right, said he has concerns about how tech companies promote information to users, especially as it relates to political content.
“Sometimes I worry some of the people across the spectrum I tend to agree with on competition policy, that maybe their instinct is to be a little too pro-censorship,” Vance said.
At the same time, progressives have widely raised concerns about a lack of content moderation on social media platforms and how tech companies have fueled the spread of misinformation.