White House infrastructure meeting on the books

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With help from Nancy Scola and John Hendel.

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Quick Fix

— Broadband watch: President Donald Trump meets Democratic leaders about infrastructure this week, as rural lawmakers continue to push to include high-speed internet on the agenda.

— Big week in Europe: The EU’s upcoming parliamentary elections are a test for Facebook’s efforts to combat disinformation, and GDPR has its one-year birthday.

— Breaking down Andrew Yang: We dig into the Democratic presidential candidate’s ideas and how he’s soured on the tech industry, including Jeff Bezos.

HAPPY MONDAY AND WELCOME BACK TO MORNING TECH. I’m your host, Alexandra Levine. Since the last time I landed in your inbox, I spotted endless caps and gowns across the city. Congratulations, graduates!

Got a news tip? Drop me a line at [email protected] or @Ali_Lev. Don’t forget to add us @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro, and catch the rest of the team’s contact info after Quick Downloads. Have an event for MT’s tech calendar? Email the details to [email protected].

Driving the Day

INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK … AGAIN — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are expected to meet with Trump on Wednesday to discuss infrastructure, amid questions about how to pay for the proposed $2 trillion to build new roads, bridges and high-speed rail. As always, we’re watching closely to see how broadband might figure into that conversation, given the desire by many rural state Republicans for funding for better high-speed internet.

OVER IN THE EU — It’s a big week for tech in the European Union. All eyes are on how Facebook and other social media do in combating disinformation around European Parliament elections, and May 25 marks the one-year anniversary of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. GDPR has shifted the debate on data privacy around the world, and we’ll have more on the law’s impact in the days ahead.

HUAWEI CRACKDOWN CATCHES UP WITH GOOGLE — Google is suspending some of its dealings with Huawei as the Trump administration puts the squeeze on the Chinese company, Reuters reports. That includes the “transfer of hardware, software and technical services except those publicly available via open source licensing,” according to the story. “We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications,” a Google spokesperson told MT. The search giant is already under pressure from the Pentagon and lawmakers over its pursuit of research projects in China while withdrawing from work with the Defense Department.

— Why it’s a big deal for Huawei: Per Reuters, “The move could hobble Huawei’s smartphone business outside China as the tech giant will immediately lose access to updates to Google’s Android operating system. Future versions of Huawei smartphones that run on Android will also lose access to popular services including the Google Play Store and Gmail and YouTube apps.”

— Chipmakers get in on the act: Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom will also stop supplying Huawei, Bloomberg reports.

PLUS, ON THE HOMEFRONT — Some lawmakers say the federal government should help small U.S. wireless providers rip out and replace their existing Chinese network equipment, John reports. The Rural Wireless Association puts the collective price tag at $1 billion.

— Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he would raise the issue with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and push for a solution in the Appropriations Committee. “We need to provide support to those small and rural communities who have already installed some of this equipment and will need help in covering the costs of removing and replacing it,” he said. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, concurs: “We need to explore incentives not only for these smaller carriers not to use this equipment, but in a risk-based way to replace the equipment they’ve installed.”

INSIDE YANG’S (ANTI-TECH) CAMPAIGN — Nancy has a fascinating profile of longshot Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who is both of the tech world and one of its harshest critics. “Viewed from a great distance, Yang’s candidacy has a lot in common with the two political comets that streaked across the 2016 presidential campaign: Donald Trump on the right and Bernie Sanders on the left. Yang runs essentially the same playbook: embracing economic grievance, hammering the tech giants and other darlings of the ‘new economy,’ selling his case directly to the working American,” she writes. “Unlike Trump and Sanders, however, Yang, 44, comes precisely from the same corporate, tech-soaked world he is trying to attack.”

— Yang’s big policy proposal is universal basic income, called the “freedom dividend,” which would give every American adult a guaranteed monthly $1,000 check. According to Yang, it would be paid for at least in part by taxing big corporations. “We’re going to extract billions of dollars from Jeff,” Yang told Nancy, referring to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Read Nancy’s full story here.

DEEP DIVE ON AI BILL — The bipartisan AI in Government Act (H.R. 2575), reintroduced this month in the Senate, aims to boost federal use of artificial intelligence technology. In this handy Pro DataPoint graphic, POLITICO’s Cristina Rivero breaks down the roles of various federal agencies in the effort. Among other things, it would give the General Services Administration more power to conduct research and hire talent, via a new “AI Center of Excellence.”

TECH QUOTE DU JOUR — In his commencement speech at Tulane University, Apple CEO Tim Cook — without naming names — warned against the dangers of social media echo chambers. “We forget sometimes that our pre-existing beliefs have their own force of gravity. Today certain algorithms pull toward you the things you already know, believe or like, and they push away everything else,” he said. “Push back! It shouldn’t be this way.”

— Cook, of course, has a long history of indirectly criticizing companies like Facebook and Google for hoovering up personal information as he touts Apple’s commitment to privacy. This appears to be a broadening of his takedown of the industry.

Silicon Valley Must-Reads

“Inside Google’s Civil War”: “Some employees say Google is losing touch with its ‘Don’t be evil’ motto,” Fortune reports. “What happens when an empowered tech workforce rebels?”

Opinion: “Democrats Need to Tame the Facebook Monster They Helped Create,” via POLITICO Magazine.

Quick Downloads

Trade tribulations: “How the U.S.-China Trade War Could Hike iPhone Prices,” via WIRED.

Royal restrictions: “Prince Harry won a legal battle with the paparazzi using Europe’s GDPR privacy law,” Business Insider reports.

Also across the pond: Amazon is investing in the British food-delivery service Deliveroo, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Eric Engleman ([email protected], @ericengleman), Kyle Daly ([email protected], @dalykyle), Nancy Scola ([email protected], @nancyscola), Margaret Harding McGill ([email protected], @margarethmcgill), Steven Overly ([email protected], @stevenoverly), John Hendel ([email protected], @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima ([email protected], @viaCristiano), Alexandra S. Levine ([email protected], @Ali_Lev) and Jordyn Hermani ([email protected], @JordynHermani).

TTYL.