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US President Donald Trump's Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick is delivering testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee for his nomination hearing. LIVESTREAM

• Notably, Lutnick’s nomination was introduced in person by Vice President JD Vance, a former member of the Commerce panel, who described Lutnick as a ‘product and sales guy’.
• Asked if 2022 CHIPS and Science Act investments should be preserved: “I think they are an excellent downpayment on our ability to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to America,” but notes the investments should be reviewed.
• Ranking Democrat Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) notes Lutnick’s comments appear at odds with recent comments from Trump, likely referring to Trump’s speech at this week’s House GOP retreat where he panned the CHIPS Act: “…this ridiculous program that Biden has given everybody billions of dollars.”
• Lutnick later notes that he will “do enormous work to get [CHIPS] money out appropriately and correctly,” and downplays the impact of Trump’s federal spending freeze on CHIPS funding.
• Asked how he would approach AI regulation, Lutnick says: “It has to be an American-driven leadership in AI,” noting that he would support regulation similar to that of “cyber technology and cyber rules.”
• He says he prefers “across the board tariffs,” noting that targeted tariffs could lead to a tit-for-tat tariff war on individual products: “My way of thinking is county-by-country, macro… We are treated horribly by the global trading environment… We need to be treated with respect to create reciprocity, fairness, and respect.” 

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