Chair Rodgers Joins Squawk Box to Talk About Protecting Americans' National Security

all right welcome back everybody the House of Representatives is going to be fast-tracking a vote next week on a bill that could lead to a national ban on Tik Tock Tik Tok is messaging users urging them to call Congress and oppose this bill and for a closer look on this right now we want to bring in congresswoman Kathy McMorris Rogers of Washington state she chairs the house Energy and Commerce Committee which voted unanimously to approve that measure yesterday and uh chair thank you for joining us this morning let's stick into this a little bit because uh there have been so many states and uh National Representatives who have talked about the possibility of banning Tik Tock this came a lot closer than people might have anticipated this was a unanimous vote 50 to nothing in your committee right to push this out and there's a vote coming to the full Congress what do you anticipate the vote on the full floor will be well I I think that the the the vote in committee the the unanimous 50 to zero vote in committee under underscores the the concerns the National Security concerns related to apps that are controlled by Foreign adversaries and and that includes Tik Tok but it is foreign adversaries that are using apps to collect to manipulate to surveil on Americans through the data that they are collecting and it was we had a classified hearing yesterday uh the members responded to that and we're moving quickly on the floor because this because of the national security threat that's posed by these apps this is not a this is not a ban this would be a choice for Tik Tok whether or not it remains controlled by the CCP through bite dance or if it decides to divest and to continue to be operational in the United States of America but it's their choice bite Dan the Chinese company that controls Tik Tok has said uh it's not sharing any information with its users with the Chinese Communist party but it also says that the Chinese Communist Party might not let them divest Tik Tok so what's your response do you know differ well the the Tik Tok has repeatedly been caught in this lie that it is not controlled by the Chinese Communist Party through bite dance we know from internal recordings that have that from employees that are saying everything is seen by China this is the way that China operates this is the way that they treat their own citizens they surveil they on their own citizens and they cannot be trusted to safeguard American data or to protect our American values like Freedom congresswoman it's it's hard to to decide what to do everybody wants to uh to allow corporations even if they're not us uh you know we don't want to like ban Corporation we don't want to ban free speech and Tik Tok very effectively has reached me with their ads now they've got like a this cute little uh nun that's doing a bunch of good works that she needs Tik Tock to do that have you seen that she's got uh there's another one we we're talking about a neurosurgeon who lost his son in a drunk driving accident and he's been able to reach people so that trying to make it NE I mean they're very smooth and sort of I don't know if it's conniving but is this the CCP tugging on my heartstrings to allow Tik Tock to remain um you know so that we don't do anything about it well just because they say it doesn't make it true and they are collecting massive amounts of data 17 million users that are on T Tik Tok this is how China operates this is how the the CCP operates and they are using this to to surveil to uh Target and manipulate data we saw a real-time example yesterday at uh when we were in the middle of this hearing and markup where users on Tik Tok were blocked from being able to get onto the app until they called their representative and told them to not support this legislation that is just that was one real-time example of how they can manipulate Americans for their own purposes and and by the way that was a pretty effective campaign the Washington Pro post is reporting that some offices some Congressional offices were getting as many as 20 calls per minute uh from Tik Tok users saying don't take my Tik Tock away so do you think that that sort of pressure is going to change the vote on the full floor well it was clear that they they were able to weaponized their tool to motivate a lot of people to call many offices were saying that it was more calls than they'd ever received but it just underscores how this can be used uh for their their own purposes and I would just under this is this is not about targeting Tik Tok this is about a national security threat Tik Tok is a tool of the Chinese Communist Party the legislation is about banning applications that are controlled by Foreign adversaries like China that pose a national security threat to the United States of America but Tik Tok has a choice to make here they can divest that is they can divest from bite dance and continue to operate in the United States of America or they can remain under the control a bite dance and ultimately the Chinese Communist party chair let's just talk about this it's not enough to get it past the house obviously an impressive vote in committee 50 to nothing but you need not only the house to vote on this next week but then the Senate to come up with a similar law a similar uh Bill and then send the whole thing to the presidency what are the odds that this has passed into law um in the next three or four months well our goal is to get this to get this legislation onto the president's desk there's been many bills introduced in the house and the Senate uh related to the concern about foreign adversaries that are collecting massive amounts of data 170 million users for example through Tik Tok and how they are using that data against Americans even last night I was having conversations with Senators on the house floor uh in the uh while we were watching the State of the Union related to how uh they also want to engage on this legislation uh because of the the serious concern the national security threat that poses when foreign adversaries are able to collect this kind of data uh I'm I'm I'm very hopeful that we are going to get a a bill on the president's desk Al Ely we've also been working with the White House the White House has given a lot of technical assistance because this is a targeted uh specific approach uh because of constitutional concerns we want to make sure that we are focused on the national security threat that an application poses when it's collecting this data on Americans but is ultimately controlled by a foreign adversary right which I guess is why nobody really wants to call it the tick tock ruling because that's a little too narrow it's got to be broader than that but chair MCM Morris Rogers want to thank you for joining us this is about the only issue that seems to have complete bipartisan bipartisan support in Washington these days good to be with you