Democrats at House Hearing: Trump Undermined Child Online Safety with FTC Firings

Democratic lawmakers accused President Donald Trump at a hearing Wednesday of undercutting bipartisan efforts to protect children online by dismissing two members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has led regulatory efforts to crack down on harms to kids.

Speaking at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on online harms, full committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) bashed Trump’s decision to fire Democrats Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter from the FTC, which he said has “consistently been America’s strongest champion against the abuses of Big Tech.”

Pallone said he found it “extraordinary” that the panel’s Republican leadership convened the hearing while “willfully ignoring the outrageous, unlawful and unconstitutional attempt just last week by President Trump to fire two duly nominated and confirmed members of the FTC.”

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) argued that most congressional efforts to pass new guardrails for kids online “rely on a strong Federal Trade Commission to enforce the law.”

Republican lawmakers largely sidestepped the firings during the hearing, though the chair of the subcommittee convening it, Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), told Pallone he was open to discussing the possibility of an oversight hearing on the matter. Others, including Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL), criticized Democrats for bringing up political matters at the session.

Slaughter, who Democratic lawmakers invited to testify at the hearing, said during her remarks that the agency’s work against online harms was “undermined” by the firings. Both she and Bedoya have said they plan to challenge the firings as illegal in court. (Bedoya, who discussed the firings with Tech Policy Press on Monday, sat behind her during the session.)

“The FTC has done extraordinary work, much of it on a bipartisan basis, especially to combat harms to children, but I worry about the future of that work,” Slaughter said.

In her written testimony, Slaughter questioned whether the agency's commitment to protecting children would wane “when the perspective of only one party matters,” including a recent effort to curtail harm artificial intelligence-driven chatbots may pose to young users. (While some of the FTC’s actions on the issue have been bipartisan, Republicans declined to support the agency referring an AI-related child safety complaint involving Snap to the Department of Justice.)

Spokespeople for the Federal Trade Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement that Trump “has the lawful authority to manage personnel within the executive branch” and "will continue to rid the federal government of bad actors unaligned with his common sense agenda," without elaborating. Bedoya and Slaughter have said the White House has not disclosed any cause for their firings.

FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson on Tuesday announced an upcoming workshop focused on the issue, titled “The Attention Economy: How Big Tech Firms Exploit Children and Hurt Families.”

“Protecting America’s children online is a priority of the Trump-Vance FTC,” he posted on X.

On Capitol Hill, Republican and Democratic lawmakers offered starkly different assessments of the likelihood that Congress would pass new legislation to boost safeguards for kids online.

Bilirakis and Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY), the chair of the full committee, both expressed confidence that the committee would get a version of the Kids Online Safety Act over the finish line. “We’re going to have a bill this year that’s going to pass,” Guthrie said.

“We’re going to keep pushing forward, get it across the finish line this time,” added Bilirakis.

But Pallone expressed deep skepticism, citing House Republican leadership’s opposition to the effort last year and lobbying against the measure by major tech companies.

“Let’s not kid the people here to suggest that these bills are going to become law … It’s not going to happen,” he said.