00:00We have votes at 11.45, which is fast approaching.
00:04We'll have a second round of, as soon as Lindsay leaves, only the people in this room.
00:12Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary.
00:14Thank you, and I do hope we will vote soon if we don't see any progress toward peace on the Graham-Blumenthal legislation.
00:24Thank you. So I want to follow up on Senator Kuhn's questions with respect to the deal with the UAE and AI.
00:35Because I know you share our concerns about diffusion of technology to China.
00:40In fact, you're doing a number of things in your department to try to crack down on exports of very sensitive items.
00:47I think we need to go into this very clear-eyed.
00:49I mean, the UAE has conducted recently the Falcon Shield exercises with China.
00:56They've hailed a, quote, golden era in UAE-China relations.
01:02I think it would be helpful, Mr. Secretary, if you could provide, if you haven't already, and I don't think you have,
01:10if the administration could transmit the text of the agreement with the UAE, including the side letters and security annexes to Congress before any licenses are issued.
01:25Can you commit to doing that?
01:28I'll just follow whatever the rules of the State Department are.
01:31But I'd be happy to go over it with you privately.
01:33But if you want it to be public, I'll just let the State Department decide how they play those things.
01:37Because that's for them to decide, not me.
01:40Yeah, I think it would hopefully allay some concerns.
01:45And I have some very big concerns about the agreement as I currently understand it.
01:50But I look forward to seeing it.
01:51I just want to point out that the Republican-led Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party
01:57said last year about a much smaller deal that was completed by the previous administration involving UAE.
02:05And I'm quoting from that Republican-led Select Committee, quote,
02:09an agreement of this significance must be properly vetted by both Congress and the executive branch.
02:15They also called on the National Intelligence Council to provide Congress with an official assessment of the risks posed by the deal between Microsoft and G42.
02:26And they went on to say only once the agreement has received this level of scrutiny should the U.S. government allow it to move forward.
02:33Do you think that was good advice from the Republican-led Select Committee?
02:37I don't know what the topic they were addressing was.
02:40But this was done in the whole of the administration talking through it.
02:45And it's not a legally binding commitment.
02:48It's a framework on which to pursue things.
02:53I understand that.
02:53I think the concern is that we make sure that we lock down the terms, at least that we understand the terms.
03:00Congress has some information about the terms as we go forward.
03:06That's not unreasonable, is it?
03:08No, as I said, I'd be glad to go over with you.
03:10But if it's that you want me to transmit it, I think the State Department would have to say that's okay.
03:16And that's just their prerogative.
03:18Understood.
03:19Quick question on the Patent Office.
03:22And I agree with Senator Kuhn's comments and yours as well about the importance of the Patent Office.
03:28I've also been concerned about Doge getting access to unpublished patent applications.
03:37That's not happening.
03:38No, no, no, no.
03:40No, not happening.
03:41That's just no, no, and I gave a little laugh of no.
03:44You heard all that.
03:45So you can provide 100% assurance that that's not happening.
03:49No, 100%.
03:49No.
03:51Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
03:52I appreciate that because that would be obviously of great concern.
03:59So, look, I look forward to the chance to get together.
04:03There are lots of statements you've made over time.
04:06I'm not going to take the time today to interrogate you all about them all.
04:10Although I do want to ask you this one question.
04:12I assume after yesterday, you're no longer advocating people buy Tesla stock.
04:19It was a, on Jesse Waters, he showed arsonists burning cars and attacking a company.
04:30Then he showed Tim Walz literally attacking Elon Musk's stock.
04:36Not the man, not the product.
04:38Literally his stock.
04:39And I just thought, you know, a terrorist attack on an American, a great American stock seemed to require a response from me.
04:47Mr. Secretary, I think probably you would agree that Secretary of Commerce probably should not often be offering suggestions on stock purchases.
05:01But I'm going to leave it at that.
05:03I'm not going to go through some of these other statements today.
05:06I do want to end, and I'm going to pass it over to the chairman where I started.
05:12I do hope that at least from our experience so far in the first four months, when I say ours, I'm speaking at least for the Democrats on the committee,
05:21that we can hit the reset button with you and the Department of Commerce.
05:26And I would welcome the chance to sit down with you and go over all of these issues because we've got a budget to deal with.
05:36We hope that we can resolve it.
05:40I'm going to be working in good faith with the chairman.
05:43So can we get together and go over a number of these issues I've raised and some that I haven't?
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