Mike Kuiken serves as a Commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission following nearly 23 years in the U.S. Senate. Mike is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Mike is also exploring opportunities in the private sector.
Mike previously served as Majority Leader Schumer's National Security Advisor, holding the Senate's most senior national security staff role. As a “Gang of Eight” staff member, he played a key role in shaping critical national security policies and providing oversight on intelligence operations, particularly on the most sensitive matters, for over seven years.
Mike also led the successful campaign that crafted, negotiated, and secured the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act and played a key role in establishing and managing the Senate's bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forums. Mike also played an integral role in negotiating and securing significant reforms in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. process, the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act, and the creation and funding of the Federal Government’s Technology Modernization Fund.
Prior to joining Senator Schumer’s team, Mike spent more than a decade on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) staff as a professional staff member. His portfolio on SASC included, among other things, the Middle East, Africa, and Western Hemisphere, as well as counterterrorism and intelligence policy.
During his time on the SASC, he worked for two giants of the Senate: Jack Reed and the late Carl Levin. Mike’s major accomplishments on SASC included an expansion of oversight of sensitive military operations, several major rounds of legislation that expanded sanctions on Iran, and once-in-a-generation comprehensive reform of the Department of Defense’s security assistance authorities – many of which have enabled DoD’s support to Ukraine.
Over the course of his career, Mike has been on the front lines of every consequential national security policy issue – war on terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran, Arab Spring, conflict in Syria, rise of the Islamic State, Benghazi, rise of China, Russia’s interference in American democracy, responding to cyber events, Taiwan, and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. He has also played an integral role in two decades’ worth of defense appropriations bills and national defense authorization acts, the most consequential pieces of national security legislation the Senate passes annually.
Commissioner Michael Kuiken was appointed to the Commission by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer for a term expiring December 31, 2025.