Mar 14, 2024, 16:17

The majority of House Republicans amazingly just aligned with the Biden administration on one of its top priorities to ban the social media app TikTok. This amounts to the most far-reaching act of censorship in the history of the United States. It's an attack on the right of American citizens to receive their information from any source they choose. Most of us believe that was a fundamental right. But of course almost no one in Washington will admit that that's happening. That's not at all what's going on, they tell us. No. Instead they're framing what's very obviously censorship as an act of self-defense against a foreign adversary. If that sounds familiar, it should be. It's the same rationale they used to spy on Donald Trump, among other things, once they designated him a tool of Russia. And as always they're doing all of this in the bluntest, least restrained terms. Because it's your fault, actually. Quote, voting against the bill is a vote for the Chinese Communist Party, proclaimed neocon congressman Dan Crenshaw, the Nikki Haley of Texas. Quote, the opponents of this bill aren't defending free speech, they're defending Chinese access to American data and American minds. Not a good look. You're a bad American if you don't agree with me, says Dan Crenshaw. And the rest of the liars said similar things, and maybe some of them believed it. That is possible, given the median IQ in the Congress. But just for a moment, let's consider their argument rationally. Let's just assess it for a moment. The federal government very much wants to protect us and our children from China. That's what they're telling us. Now let's assume for a moment that that's true. And let's further assume that the Chinese government is in fact a greater threat to our happiness and well-being than our own government is. That's a stretch if you think about it. In fact, it's totally unsupported by evidence of any kind. But for the sake of argument, let's just stipulate that that is in fact true. So if you were in charge, how would you go about protecting the United States from China? Let's see. The first thing you would do is prevent the CCP from buying American farmland and controlling our food supply. That way the Chinese government, a government they claim is our greatest enemy, would not have the power to starve our population to death. That would be key. You'd get right on that. Of course, you'd also want to make sure that the CCP had zero control over our water, or energy, or communications infrastructure, basic elemental things, things you couldn't live without. You wouldn't want the Chinese anywhere near those things. You would not allow it. Those would be the first priorities on your list. And then you would make certain that the Chinese didn't control your economy. You would not, for example, export your entire industrial base to China, simultaneously making them rich and you poor. You would not do that. Nor would you allow them to hold a meaningful portion of your debt. That would be reckless as hell. You wouldn't allow the Communist Party of China to send billions to your most prestigious universities, thereby gaining control of the minds of the next generation of your leaders. And needless to say, you would not allow Chinese citizens by the tens of thousands to invade your country over your southern border. That would be insane. You would furthermore keep Chinese citizens out of medical, scientific, and R&D facilities. You definitely would not fund their biolabs or cover up for them when they unleashed killer viruses on the world. No, you wouldn't. Why would you do that? And then on questions of foreign policy, you would not spend a ton of time worrying about Taiwan. It's far away. And honestly, who cares? No. Because you don't have all the money in the world or all the time in the world, you would narrow down your priorities and you would spend your energy and military might on your own hemisphere, where you and your population actually live. The people you want to protect, they live in the Western Hemisphere. So you would not allow the Chinese government to colonize pretty much every country in the Americas, including Canada and Mexico. No. And you certainly wouldn't let the Chinese of all people build the infrastructure in places that you directly control, like the supposedly American Virgin Islands where the roads are paid for by China. That would be crazy and humiliating and very easy to stop. You wouldn't have to put up with that. So you wouldn't put up with it. Not for a second. And just to make sure that China understood you're doing all you could to protect your own people, because that was really your goal, because being Dan Crenshaw, you really care about your own people in your own country. Because of that, you would immediately shoot down any spy balloon from China that floated over Montana. Obviously, that's some of what you would do. And yet somehow the US government, even Dan Crenshaw, who really cares about your children, protecting them from China, has done none of that, and has no plans to do any of that ever. So China still makes our antibiotics and our vitamins. But what Dan Crenshaw is doing is banning a social media app. And probably not the first social media app Dan Crenshaw will call for banning or the Biden administration, with the help of Republican leaders, will try to ban. So what is this about? Well, it's not about China. It may be about other foreign countries. It's definitely not about China. Because pay no attention to what they say. Watch carefully what they do. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who's of course, a sitting United States Senator, seems to be one of the very few in Washington who's watching what they do, not what they say. And so he is opposing this effort to ban a social media app, not because he is a tool of China, though, of course, they're doubtless calling him that now, but because he is a dot connector from way back. And we are honored to have him join us now. Senator, thanks so much for coming on. Thanks for having me, Tucker. I'll go ahead and presume to speak for you, too. I don't think most people are really that in favor of TikTok or the Chinese government. I assume you're not. I'm definitely not. But Republican leaders seem to believe two things that contradict one another. One, they believe that on some evidence that Joe Biden is like kind of controlled by China and that Joe Biden is pushing transgenderism. And yet and that is true. But they're aligning with Joe Biden, who is suddenly claiming that TikTok is bad because it's too Chinese and it's pouring filth into the minds of our children. Now, he can't be sincere about that, obviously. So why would they be joining him in this? Do you have any idea? You know, my concern has always been with the centralization of power, with giving up power. I don't care whether it's a Republican or a Democrat president. I don't want any president to have the power to ban apps that are sold on an app store. And that's essentially what this is going to happen. Hundred eighty million Americans put dance videos up and whatever else is on TikTok. And they choose the terms of the service the same way people on Facebook do. And does Facebook scrape your data? Sure. Does Google scrape your data? Do all of these giant tech companies scrape your data? They all take your data. But the thing is, is there are now accusations. They say, oh, TikTok's owned by the Chinese government. The Chinese communists own it. Well, that's not even true. You can't say stuff just over and over again. That's not true. TikTok is owned by about 60 percent of its owned by international investors from all over the world. Twenty percent is owned by the two Chinese software engineers that created the app. And 20 percent is owned by the employees of TikTok, which 7,000 of them are Americans. So there's a significant nexus of Americans in the ownership. And then there's a significant nexus of Americans using this. And they say, oh, well, the Chinese government owns it. It's just frankly not true. Now, the company that owns TikTok also owns something like TikTok that is censored. And the Chinese let that be broadcast throughout China. The Chinese government does have a member of the board. It's called Douyin. It's the Chinese TikTok. But they don't have a member of the board of ByteDance. They don't control ByteDance. And the data is now kept in Oracle Cloud, centered in Texas. And this has been done because the company wants to try to exist. It's a very popular app. It has a great deal of value. So they're doing anything they can to comply. And yet the hysterics in the house are just shut them down, shut them down. Communism this, communism that. Look, I've written two books about Chinese communism and what it does both during the COVID leak and also what it did during Mao's reign. So I am no fan of Chinese communism. But at the same time, we can't sort of like, you know, emulate the Chinese to try to protect our way of life, becoming like the Chinese and banning things. TikTok is banned in China. They don't have TikTok. They have a censored version in China that the Chinese government does control, but they don't control TikTok over here. If we ban TikTok, we're simply becoming and acting like the Chinese. So there is a hysteria afoot. But in America, there are things that protect you can't just take people's stuff in America. If you have a company, I can't come take Tucker Carlson Network just from you because one of your investors is from Chinese, from China. I have to go to court. I have to prove that somehow you're a Chinese communist and that you're giving data to them. These are all allegations. They may or may not be true, but you can't take someone's company worth billions of dollars without proving it in a court of law. Likewise, you can't take the rights of freedom of speech of 170, 180 million people who want to express themselves. So I think the courts will rule against this. They did twice in the last four years in federal court, and they just recently overturned the Montana ban. So I think there's a very good chance this is unconstitutional, but that doesn't seem to be deterring any of my colleagues in the House. Their argument doesn't even make sense. I mean, they're saying that TikTok is foreign controlled. I'm willing to believe that and that they're spying on us. I definitely believe that. But Google and Facebook are spying on us on a much greater scale. And they're foreign controlled, too. They're running people who hate the United States demonstrably. They say so. So Google and Facebook are not a threat.