Thune on Fox News: Where Were the Regulators?

Press Release

U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today joined America Reports on Fox News to discuss the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, his questioning of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this morning, and his bipartisan legislation to tackle national security threats from foreign adversary technologies like TikTok.

On the failure of Silicon Valley Bank:

"The question has to be asked, and they will have these guys in front of the appropriate committees in the Congress, the Senate Banking Committee, what went wrong? Why did the regulators not see this? I mean, this seems to me like an epic failure of the job that they have to supervise the banks.

"And if you saw a bank loading up its balance sheet with securities that were losing value, and that you had all these unrealized losses on bank balance sheets, you think you would probably, you know, put up a red flag there. And it seems like they completely missed it. So I think we have to find out why the regulators failed."

On Thune's questioning of Secretary Yellen this morning:

"I asked [Secretary] Yellen the question this morning, and I think we need to ask the FDIC and the Fed when they come in front of the Senate Banking Committee, partly is, you know, are they back to work?

"You know, I mean, with the pandemic, there are a lot of government employees who have been staying home, and this is the kind of job that you kind of have to be on site to get it done. And she didn't have a really good answer as to whether the pandemic was over and how much of their workforce is actually back in the office.

"But I think those are relevant questions. And I'm anxious to hear the answers as to why what appears to be very obvious, even to people who are somewhat, you know, layman when it comes to these issues, that this was a huge problem in the making."

On Thune's bipartisan legislation to tackle national security threats from foreign adversary technologies like TikTok:

"I've got a piece of legislation I've been working on, a lot of Republicans and Democrats on board with it, that basically creates a rules-based process whereby these types of technologies and platforms can each be reviewed to determine whether or not they represent a national security risk … and whether or not that platform needs to be blocked, whether or not there needs to be mitigation measures.

"But I think that process is an important one, not just for TikTok, but for other types of apps and technologies that continue to come into this country."

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