SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 A
to U.S. security in any way.”
“We offered a range of signifi-
cant proposals to mitigate any
concerns the U.S. government
might have, including further re-
stricting access to guest data and
appointing an independent moni-
tor to ensure these protections.
Unfortunately, those offers were
rebuffed,” the company said at the
time.
In 2018, after a CFIUS review,
Trump ordered Singapore-based
Broadcom to abandon its $117 bil-
lion bid for the U.S. semiconduc-
tor company Qualcomm, blocking
what would have been one of the
biggest technology deals in his-
tory.
A full presidential order is not
always required to block or re-
verse a deal. Lawyers familiar with
CFIUS reviews say the national
security committee can tell a for-
eign company: Sell the asset or the
president will issue an order.
That appears to be what hap-
pened last year, when the Trump
administration forced a Chinese
company to sell its majority stake
in a U.S. health-care data compa-
ny, PatientsLikeMe.
When Pompeo said last month
that TikTok might be banned,
frantic users took to the app to
bemoan its potential demise and
urge followers to find them on
other social media sites.
“I really hope that this will not
happen,” one user said in a video.
“All the videos, all the memories of
you. This can’t be true.”
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[email protected]field from which U.S. companies
are largely absent. The United
States calls Huawei a security risk,
which the company denies, and
has undertaken an international
lobbying campaign to persuade
other countries not to buy from
Huawei.
The Trump administration has
also targeted other Chinese com-
panies, restricting trade with
more than a dozen it accuses of
supplying surveillance gear in the
western province of Xinjiang,
where U.S. officials and human
rights groups say China’s ruling
Communist Party is holding Mus-
lims in mass detention camps.
The Trump administration has
also previously used CFIUS to
scrutinize, block or reverse Chi-
nese acquisitions.
In March, Trump ordered a Chi-
nese company to divest all owner-
ship of a U.S. hotel-software com-
pany, saying the Beijing investor
could harm U.S. national security.
A written order from the presi-
dent’s office suggested the admin-
istration was concerned about
Chinese access to StayNTouch’s
hotel guest data.
The order, which followed a
CFIUS review, instructed the Chi-
nese company to immediately re-
frain from accessing any of StayN-
Touch’s hotel guest data.
The Chinese company, Beijing
Shiji Information Technology, ac-
quired StayNTouch in 2018, saying
the U.S. company’s software was
used in connection with 90,
hotel rooms globally.
After the order was issued, Bei-
jing Shiji said it was “not a threatcomputing contract. Microsoft as
a buyer could help quell adminis-
tration security concerns about
TikTok data.
Facebook CEO Mark Zucker-
berg called out TikTok as a rival
during a congressional antitrust
hearing earlier this week, at which
Microsoft was noticeably absent.
TikTok has tried in recent
months to convince U.S. users and
regulators of its strong ties to the
country. It emphasizes that it has
hundreds of employees in the
United States and even hired for-
mer Disney executive Kevin May-
er to be its new chief executive in
May.
On Wednesday, Mayer pledged
the company will allow U.S. regu-
lators and privacy experts to take a
closer look under its digital hood,
offering them the ability to “exam-
ine” its underlying software code
in response to claims it is handing
off data to the Chinese govern-
ment.
The app, which lets users create
and post short videos with music
and other effects, has surged in
popularity even more during the
coronavirus pandemic as people
search for at-home activities and
distractions. Teens are especially
active on TikTok, creating videos
showcasing their dancing, pranks
and cooking skills.
This is the latest in a string of
moves by the Trump administra-
tion to counter Chinese tech gi-
ants.
Tension has already come to a
head over Chinese telecom giant
Huawei, the world’s largest pro-
vider of mobile network gear — atakeovers should be reversed, on
national security grounds. CFIUS
began investigating an acquisi-
tion by Beijing-based ByteDance
after lawmakers asked the govern-
ment to step in over national secu-
rity concerns.
ByteDance bought karaoke app
Musical.ly in 2017 and merged it
with TikTok, launching the app to
mass popularity in the United
States.
James Andrew Lewis, vice pres-
ident of the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, said
foreign companies usually take
the hint when they think a de-
mand from the U.S. government
will be coming.
“Usually, everyone gets the mes-
sage and takes action without
waiting for formal government ac-
tion,” he said.
Buying TikTok could reshape
the Big Tech landscape, giving
Microsoft a strong foothold in the
U.S. consumer market with one of
the world’s fastest-growing social
media platforms. Unlike many of
its competitors, Microsoft does
not have a creative social media
company to sow brand recogni-
tion with younger users, though
the Redmond, Wash.-based com-
pany does own professional net-
working site LinkedIn.
While the acquisition could
raise some antitrust eyebrows,
regulators haven’t typically
blocked acquisitions of business
lines that are dissimilar from what
a company already does. Micro-
soft also has deep ties with the U.S.
government, most recently win-
ning the Pentagon’s JEDI cloudPompeo to say earlier this month
that the United States is “certainly
looking at” banning TikTok.
Branches of the U.S. military,
including the Army and Navy,
have banned the app from govern-
ment-issued phones. The Penta-
gon urged its employees last year
to uninstall the app because of
security concerns.
On Friday, Trump reiterated
that option.
“We may be banning TikTok,”
the president told reporters be-
fore leaving for Florida. “We may
be doing some other things. There
are a couple of options. But a lot of
things are happening, so we’ll see
what happens. But we are looking
at a lot of alternatives with respect
to TikTok.”
TikTok spokeswoman Hilary
McQuaide declined to comment
on the expected order, but she said
they are “confident in the long-
term success of TikTok.” Microsoft
spokesman Frank Shaw declined
to comment. Bloomberg News
first reported the news on the
divestiture.
TikTok has continually insisted
that it does not hand over infor-
mation to the Chinese govern-
ment. “We have never provided
user data to the Chinese govern-
ment, nor would we do so if asked,”
McQuaide said last month.
The Committee on Foreign In-
vestment in the United States
(CFIUS), an interagency body
whose powers were strengthened
by 2018 legislation, recommends
to the president whether certain
proposed takeovers should be re-
jected, and whether completedsince the president was also con-
sidering other approaches, includ-
ing designating TikTok under an
executive order that allows the
president to exclude national se-
curity threats from U.S. networks.
Late Friday, the president told
reporters on Air Force One while
returning to Washington from
Florida that he was not in favor of
a deal to let a U.S. company buy
TikTok’s American operations.
Trump said he could use emergen-
cy economic powers or an execu-
tive order to ban TikTok.
“Well, I have that authority. I
can do it with an executive order
or that,” he said, referring to emer-
gency economic powers.
The order that would force a
sale, which stems from a national
security investigation, is fairly
rare but has been used by Trump
as recently as March, when the
president ordered a Chinese com-
pany to sell its stake in a U.S.
hotel-software company. Last
year, the Trump administration
used it to demand the Chinese
owners of gay dating app Grindr
give up control of the company.
If Microsoft did acquire TikTok,
it would make it a major rival to
Facebook, Google’s YouTube and
other tech giants overnight, dra-
matically reshaping the U.S. social
media landscape.
The prospect of a forced sale
came amid growing concern
among U.S. officials that the Chi-
nese government could access us-
ers’ private data, something that
prompted Secretary of State Mike
TIKTOK FROM A
Trump says he plans to ban TikTok, does not favor U.S. company acquisition
months.
Eager to avoid blame for Fri-
day’s expiration of the enhanced
unemployment aid, Republicans
increasingly coalesced around the
idea of a short-term fix. But Dem-
ocrats repeatedly rejected that ap-
proach and continued pushing
for a wide-ranging $3 trillion bill
the House passed in May. That bill
would extend unemployment
benefits through January.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) unveiled a
$1 trillion counterproposal Mon-
day, but it was quickly rejected by
many members of his own confer-
ence and has increasingly seemed
irrelevant.
Senate Republicans have pro-
posed cutting the $600 weekly
federal benefit to $200 per week
for two months while giving
states time to transition to a more
complicated system that would
aim to replace 70 percent of a
worker’s prior wages. A second
proposal emerged this week that
would give states the choice to
implement the $200 bonus or
move to a system that would
replace up to 66 percent of wages.
Pelosi and Meadows have held
meetings for four days straight,
along with Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin and Senate Mi-
nority Leader Charles E. Schumer
(D-N.Y.).
Pelosi said a short-term exten-
sion might make sense if a deal
were in sight on a larger bill and
more time was needed to com-
plete it. However, she said, that is
not the state of play as the parties
remain far apart.
“We anticipate that we will
have a bill, but we’re not there
yet,” the speaker said.
Those who are relying on the
benefits have been watching the
debate unfold wearily.
“Just a few men have to make
this decision for how many mil-
lion people? Ten guys to make a
decision over these millions of
people’s lives?” said Willie Woods,
60, who has been furloughed
from his job as a hotel banquet
server in New Orleans since April
and is also losing the extra $600 a
week in jobless benefits. “This
country not taking care of Ameri-
can citizens like they’re supposed
to. We didn’t bring this pandemic
home. We were at work, and you
hit us with a pandemic.”
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[email protected]tuted cuts in anticipation of the
benefits’ expiration. She started
carpooling to the grocery store,
split a BJ’s Wholesale Club card
with family to buy food in bulk
and stopped getting takeout or
restaurant food.
She also said she’s begun visit-
ing food banks to help feed her
and her sons.
“Once you have absolutely
nothing, it’s not hard at all,” she
said of accepting charity.
The longer Congress stalls, the
more likely it is that Holmes will
have to plead with her landlord,
utility companies and other bill
holders to let accounts go into
arrears until she lands on her feet
again.
“Money is not a resource that
can be depleted. It’s a man-made
thing: If you need more, make
more,” she said. “There are other
countries — their citizens are fine,
nobody is suffering and every-
body is healthy. All our govern-
ment wants is money in their
pockets, while the people are poor
and starving and scrounging.”
The wrangling over whether
and how to extend jobless ben-
efits has occupied Washington formonths, basically,” Quebman
said. “How can you retire if you
don’t have a pension and health
care that’s paid by, let’s say, a
government?”
Raven Holmes, 38, a single
mother of two who lost her job as
a secretary in New Haven, Conn.,
in February, said she already insti-property taxes, $1,200 to keep his
health insurance once his em-
ployer stops paying in August, a
$300 car payment, and other ex-
penses like food and repairs.
Without the $600, he said, he
might have to raid his 401(k)
retirement savings.
“I’ll be in trouble within tworallied around the idea that they
were rushing to shore up the
economy during a short-lived
public health crisis, agreeing to
pass more than $2 trillion in
stimulus that they thought would
see the nation through the sum-
mer, when they hoped the pan-
demic would ease.
But surging coronavirus cases
have spurred many states to re-
verse course and close down res-
taurants and bars again, weighing
on the economic recovery. The
novel coronavirus has killed more
than 150,000 people in the United
States, according to data gathered
by The Washington Post.
Indeed, the pandemic outlast-
ed the original relief efforts that
Congress passed.
Jim Quebman, 61, an engineer
in Thousand Oaks, Calif., was ini-
tially told he’d be back at work in
two weeks when he was fur-
loughed in March from his job at a
machine shop. But the date for his
return keeps getting pushed back.
He’s been relying on the $
he gets from the federal govern-
ment, in addition to $450 in state
benefits, to keep up to date with
his monthly payments: $2,200 infor proposing the short-term ex-
tension with their backs against
the wall.
“What are we going to do in a
week?” Pelosi asked as she ex-
plained why Democrats rejected
the proposal to continue the en-
hanced unemployment benefits
at the current $600 level for an
additional week.
As many as 30 million workers,
including gig workers and the
self-employed, are currently re-
ceiving some form of unemploy-
ment insurance, which has been
supplemented by $600 in extra
federal benefits each week — on
top of whatever state unemploy-
ment benefits a worker gets —
since the crisis deepened in
March.
Many economists and workers
credit the additional money with
helping them keep up with basic
bills during the crisis: rent, mort-
gage, car and credit card pay-
ments, as well as everyday ex-
penses like food. Most states cap
weekly unemployment benefits
well below $600; some pay as
little as $275 a week as their
maximum.
Candida Kevorkian, 53, her son
and her daughter-in-law have all
been laid off and live together
with her two grandchildren in a
two-bedroom apartment in South
San Francisco, Calif. She worked
at the Westin St. Francis hotel; her
son worked at the Moscone Cen-
ter, a convention center down-
town; and her daughter-in-law
worked at a Marriott.
The extra $600 Kevorkian gets
brings her overall jobless benefits
to about $1,050 a week before
taxes. But she has about $1,700 in
other fixed expenses on top of
rent, which is $2,350 — after she
negotiated with her landlord to
lower it from $2,850. The family
has already cut back on clothing,
shoes and food, including cooking
with meat once a week. Kevorkian
said she has little hope that her
job will return, given how poorly
the public health side of the crisis
is going, and she said she feels
powerless.
“People are taking decisions for
you and your life,” she said. “In the
middle of this pandemic, they’re
playing with us.”
Back in March, when the econ-
omy was beginning to fail because
of the forced shutdowns to stop
the spread of the virus, lawmakers
BENEFITS FROM A
Jobless aid expires as impasse in Washington continues
PHOTOS BY MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGESTOP: Men wait at dawn to be the first in line to fill out
unemployment forms in Calexico, Calif., on July 24. ABOVE: Other
jobless workers join the line a s the day progresses. Since March,
the federal government had supplemented state unemployment aid.BY JEREMY BARRJames Murdoch, son of media
baron Rupert Murdoch and the
former chief executive of Fox
News parent company 21st Cen-
tury Fox — now called Fox Corp. —
has resigned his seat on the board
of the Murdoch-controlled News
Corp., citing concerns about the
company’s content and decision-
making.
The abrupt resignation came in
a tersely worded letter sent by
Murdoch to the board of the com-
pany, which owns Wall Street
Journal publisher Dow Jones and
the New York Post, among other
holdings.
“My resignation is due to dis-
agreements over certain editorial
content published by the Compa-
ny’s news outlets and certain other
strategic decisions,” Murdoch
wrote in the letter, which was filed
with the Securities and Exchange
Commission on Friday.
His resignation is the strongest
sign yet that Murdoch, 47, has
broken ideologically from his fam-ily’s media holdings, which in-
clude the cable news channel that
he once had oversight over.
While his father, who remains
the company’s executive chair-
man, is influential in Republican
politics, Murdoch and his wife,
Kathryn, have long been major
donors to left-leaning causes and
political candidates. They very
publicly donated $1 million to the
Anti-Defamation League in Au-
gust 2017 after the protests in
Charlottesville, calling out “hate
and bigotry.”James Murdoch also has donat-
ed to the presidential campaigns
of former vice president Joe Biden,
former South Bend, Ind., mayor
Pete Buttigieg and former Colora-
do governor John Hickenlooper.
His most recent donation was a
$615,000 gift June 30 to joint
fundraising committee the Biden
Victory Fund.
Earlier this year, Murdoch and
his wife issued a statement that
criticized the way that News Corp.
publications had covered the issue
of climate change. “Kathryn andJames’ views on climate are well
established and their frustration
with some of the News Corp. and
Fox coverage of the topic is also
well-known,” they said in January.
In an interview with the New
Yorker in September 2019, Mur-
doch said, “There are views I really
disagree with on Fox.” And during
a stage interview at Vanity Fair’s
New Establishment Summit in
October he replied, “Uh, no” when
asked if he still watches the net-
work he once ran.
James Murdoch’s brother,Lachlan Murdoch, now serves as
chief executive of Fox Corp., a
slimmed-down version of the
company that remained after Dis-
ney’s $71 billion acquisition of
Fox’s entertainment assets in ear-
ly 2019, as well as co-chairman of
News Corp.
In a statement, Rupert and
Lachlan Murdoch said: “We’re
grateful to James for his many
years of service to the company.
We wish him the very best in his
future endeavors.”
[email protected]James Murdoch quits News Corp. board over content