Entin: Michigan governor having TikTok, but banning it on state devices ‘not really a good look’

Governor, can you serve? No, the state of Michigan. That's just some of the highlights for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's TikTok account. She goes by Big Gretch on the social media platform. Call it TikTok for me and not for thee, because TikTok is banned from state-owned devices in Michigan because of fears of Chinese spying, except, of course, for the governor's TikTok account. Brian Enten is here, correspondent extraordinaire and social media genius, guru, expert, expert. There you go. Well, you got a lot more followers than I do, so I'm envious, but is there an explanation for why the governor should be able to have TikTok that the Chinese use to spy on Americans and nobody else in the state's allowed to? Well, people in the state are allowed to have TikTok. Right, not on state devices. Yeah, the ban went into effect March 1st. No TikTok on state devices, but there are exceptions, they say. The governor has a special cell phone that's not hooked up to any of the state's systems, her spokesperson says, and that she only does TikTok on that one cell phone, and they say also that certain law enforcement agencies can also have a special cell phone to do TikTok. They say it's still important so that they can get messages out to the public, but obviously, I mean, it's not really a good look when you put the ban in place. Well, yeah, this goes to TikTok for thee, for me, not for thee. This isn't her first rodeo at that game either. We think about COVID when she was mislocked down and then had the big dinner party and had to apologize for that. We have a picture of it, but it brings up this interesting point about TikTok because there's discussions about banning TikTok on state devices, on federal devices because of the Chinese spy risks. Then there's the discussion about banning TikTok outright in America because of how the Chinese use it, and this isn't really a liberal or conservative issue. You go across the media landscape here. A number of warnings from everybody, from ABC News, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, take a listen. Listen, it can be dangerous, more dangerous than people realize. The warning from the FBI about what it says are the potential national security dangers of TikTok. Troubling and warns families to be, quote, really careful, in his words, when it comes to kids using TikTok. A major security risk. Not only does it disseminate propaganda towards the country, it also apparently is used for spying. The danger of TikTok, owned by a Chinese company. You got Andrea Mitchell and Tucker Carlson basically saying the same thing. It might be time to pay attention. That said, they've got 100 million users in the United States. You spend a lot of time on Twitter, hundreds of thousands of followers you interact with. Is it that people just don't care about the risks of the spying? Do people talk about it and say, oh, well, whatever, the Chinese know everything anyway? I think people think the Chinese know everything anyway. I think people are addicted to TikTok. I mean, you scroll through, you watch all the little videos. I think politically it's hard. I mean, she just won reelection. They want to reach out to people, you know, during the campaigns and stuff. At the end of the day, I think that comes into play. It's funny you had me on the story today because I was laying in bed this morning and I deleted TikTok off my phone. I never really used TikTok, I'm more of a Twitter guy, but I don't know why, I just had it on there. You just had an epiphany, you thought about it? Yeah, I forgot about it. Someone sent me a TikTok link and it opened the app and I was like, oh my God, I actually had it on my phone and I deleted it right away. But, you know, it doesn't look good for her, but again, I think the way they have it set up, I mean, she's on the special phone. I mean, they're really going out of the way. The flip side, though, is right, you're supposed to always be the one to set the example, which she's never exactly excelled at. And she doesn't have that many followers, by the way. She has like 200,000. I mean, it seems like she could have cut out TikTok and still done Instagram or. You know, it's okay. I thought she, I actually thought she'd have more. Huh, interesting. Yeah. I mean, speaking from a guy who has serious following on social media, that's why your ratings on Banfield were so good last night. You think? They were, that's what I heard. Those are my people on Twitter, those are like my friends. They're like, you know, we've become friends. And there you go. All right, so your friends will see you tonight on Banfield as well, coming up in a couple hours. What do you have on the big show? We are gonna be talking about Idaho, going through the full search warrants, talking about everything that's come out over the last couple of weeks. Also, I think you did this, Murdoch, you're gonna do it, officially filing the appeal, which is big news. I mean, that story, it's not gonna end. And I know you'll get into this, but there's real reasons that, you know, vast swaths of legal experts say he may really have a chance to appeal. And how's he gonna pay for it, by the way? He claims he doesn't have any money, but these expensive lawyers have already signed on. Where's all the money coming from? We're gonna talk about that too. Oh, I like that. Follow the money. It's what reporters do, as you are one of the best at it. Brian, good to see you. Thank you.