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March 13, 2024 - The Charlie Kirk Show
47:57
TikTok: The Good, The Bad, and The Ban
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
The TikTok Ban Debate 00:01:42
Hey everybody, it's Anna Charlie Kirk Show.
To ban or not to ban?
That is the question.
We examine the TikTok conversation from all angles.
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Here we go.
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We begin with a question, and I don't quite know where I fall on it.
I have been leaning one way more than the other, but I want us to do this together.
And I want your opinions as we do this.
Patriot Act Implications 00:13:52
Should we ban TikTok?
But that's not really the question.
The question is: should we support the current piece of legislation that says that it's only there to ban TikTok?
So let's be very clear.
TikTok is societal poison.
It is a toxin in our society.
It is directly connected with the rise in transgenderism with our youth.
It is a vessel for far-left-wing politics.
It is an anti-free speech platform.
I have been banned from TikTok more times than I can count.
TikTok is awful.
It is reprehensible.
It shouldn't be on your kids' phones.
The amount of parents that allow their kids at very young ages to have TikTok on their phone.
It just, the death of parenting is one of the great tragedies in modern America.
Yeah, here's a smartphone, 11-year-old, and get your values from TikTok, I guess.
You could call it digital fentanyl.
Some people try to spin TikTok as being this great platform.
Ryan, can you get that ad that they're running from that pig farmer?
I think that's important.
TikTok is doing an all-out propaganda push.
The lobbying spree is at a rapid pace right now.
So let's go through the facts.
The House this morning passed a bill allowing the Biden White House to ban TikTok by a 352 to 65 vote margin.
Both parties were overwhelmingly on board, though opposition was weighted more towards the left.
58 Democrats voted no, 22 Republicans did the same.
The Republican no votes included Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gates, Massey.
Gosar did not vote.
The bill now heads to the Senate.
It's not clear if the Senate will actually act on this legislation, but they do.
And if they pass it, Biden says he'll sign the bill.
Now, what the bill will do is allow the Biden White House to designate TikTok as an app owned by a hostile foreign government.
It would give Byte Dance, TikTok's Chinese Communist Party-linked owner, a few months to divest itself from TikTok, or else U.S. companies like Microsoft and Apple would be ordered to ban TikTok from their app stores, effectively neutering the distribution.
Rubio and Mark Warner are the top Republicans, the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee, and they're trying to pass this bill.
So understand this is not an effective ban.
It's that they must sell to a United States company.
Rumble has put on an offer.
They say, hey, we'll buy it.
Oracle has been in the mix, which is owned by Larry Ellison, who seems more conservative and Republican than he is a Democrat.
So the question, of course, there's so many questions around this.
Who buys it?
If it's Meta or Mark Zuckerberg, will the poison actually change?
Will the social contagion effect be curtailed or stopped?
And who's actually pushing for this piece of legislation?
We have said for quite some time that Google and Facebook have been lobbying for this piece of legislation.
Think about it.
Google has YouTube and YouTube shorts.
Facebook has Instagram and Instagram reels.
TikTok is a competitor.
Again, TikTok is worse than both of those platforms, worse than the content that they prioritize, the algorithms that they push.
It is worse in the lack of speech on their platforms.
TikTok is by far the least free speech and also prioritizes the most toxic content of any platform out there.
But is this a push by the big tech companies?
What if Google ends up buying TikTok?
Is that going to make it that much better?
These are all very important questions.
And then we must take a step back.
It is owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
Allegedly, they are data mining every single person who is using the TikTok app on their phone.
We're going to have a great conversation on thought crime later.
Blake is not convinced that they're actually doing anything with this data.
I personally don't think we should be indifferent to the Chinese Communist Party having access to keystroke data and other personal information of our children.
I just don't trust the Chinese Communist Party at all.
They're an enemy of the United States.
So this bill has passed.
Let's play one of these cuts here.
The lead sponsor of the TikTok bill, who is really not my favorite person, Mike Gallagher.
Remember recently, remember he voted against the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, and then he says, oh, I'm not running for re-election.
Is Mike Gallagher trying to position himself for a nice lobbying gig after he's been a congressman?
Play cut 71, please.
The only impacted sites are those associated with foreign adversary apps, such as TikTok.com.
It can never be used to penalize individuals.
The text explicitly prohibits that.
And it cannot, cannot be used to censor speech.
It takes no position at all on the content of speech, only foreign adversary control.
Foreign adversary control.
I urge my colleagues to support this critical bipartisan legislation.
So he's framing it as foreign adversary control.
But what if we're giving power to the Biden White House that could be used and abused?
Now, proponents of the bill say that's not going to happen.
That's not going to happen.
Now, I'm right there with them with the need to address TikTok.
But it doesn't ban it.
It will only say that it goes to an American company.
Depending on what American company ends up receiving TikTok or purchasing, that's a better term for it, purchasing TikTok, then we'll have a better ability to judge whether or not they are still censoring speech and mining data.
Congressman Warren Davidson warns the TikTok bill could create an even bigger surveillance state, play cut 72.
And this bill isn't just limited to TikTok.
It's a coercive power that can be applied to others.
Apps like Telegram, Tor, things that provide privacy would be targeted by this bill.
But this is what the administration really wanted to do, what members of Congress at both sides of the aisle wanted to do, is to create a bigger surveillance state.
And that's what the Intel Committee wants to do with this.
Gentlemen, this time has expired.
We have to shrink it and protect Fourth Amendment right to privacy.
Part of this feels like the push for the Patriot Act.
The Patriot Act felt like it was the right thing to do.
The Patriot Act seemed that it was correct.
Good intentions.
And I'm just a little suspicious.
I'm sorry.
Why the sudden push?
Out of nowhere?
We can't get bipartisan agreement on the border.
We can't get bipartisan agreement, but we can get bipartisan agreement on banning TikTok.
Maybe.
Again, I am legitimately undecided here, but I'm asking the proper questions.
And also, if we do nothing, will TikTok only grow to be more powerful?
Will the Chinese Communist Party use TikTok as an ability to influence this presidential election?
All of a sudden in October, if TikTok is influencing the election for Joe Biden, who, of course, Joe Biden is a owned and operated and purchased commodity of the Chinese Communist Party government, are we going to wish that we would have forced TikTok to be sold?
We're banning TikTok before securing our southern border.
So who is pushing this forward?
Who's the main driving force?
Well, it seems as if it's the tech companies.
These tech companies, Google and Facebook, they have to be behind this lobbying spree in favor of it.
And is it wise to hand Joe Biden, the federal government, even more far-reaching powers to be able to ban apps they don't like?
And they say, oh, it's not going to be used against Rumble or X. I've heard these arguments before.
So have you.
Are we running too quickly into this?
And another thing, when I see this kind of bipartisanship, I get even more skeptical that it's a uniparty regime neoliberal effort, not a legitimate people-centered citizen-led effort.
Makes you think.
I want your thoughts.
Should this piece of legislation pass?
Should we give Joe Biden the power to ban a social media application?
I want to hear from you, freedom at charliekirk.com.
Hey, everyone, Charlie Kirk here.
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Emails are pouring in about whether or not we should ban TikTok or should we support the bill that says it will ban TikTok.
It's very important.
It is not banning TikTok.
It just changes ownership from Chinese Communist Party connected to something in the United States.
Let's play Thomas Massey's perspective here.
He's against it.
Let's play cut 68, please.
But there are some of us who feel that either intentionally or unintentionally, this legislation to ban TikTok is actually a Trojan horse.
Some of us are concerned that there are First Amendment implications here.
Americans have the right to view information.
We don't need to be protected by the government from information.
Some of us just don't want the president picking which apps we can put on our phones or which websites that we can visit.
We don't think that's appropriate.
We also think it's dangerous to give the president that kind of power, to give him the power to decide what Americans can see on their phones and their computers.
Do we want Joe Biden to have that kind of power?
Do we want the Biden White House to be able to pick and choose?
I've grown skeptical of all of these sort of legislative efforts recently.
Thomas Massey continues, play cut 69.
Now, people say that this TikTok ban will only apply to TikTok or maybe another company that pops up just like TikTok.
But the bill is written so broadly that the president could abuse that discretion and include other companies that aren't just social media companies.
So the question is, is it written that broadly?
The proponents of the bill say, no, no, no, don't worry, just trust us.
And under normal circumstances, I would, but the power you give the regime is power abused.
And a good people are split on this.
Steve Bannon is very supportive of this piece of legislation.
Tucker Carlson is very opposed to this piece of legislation.
And I am not a fan of TikTok.
If it could just be, sign a piece of paper, no more TikTok, go away forever, sign me up for that program.
But it's not about winning or losing on TikTok.
It's about something far deeper than this.
It's about what power are we willing to give the executive branch of government?
And has the executive branch of government, has the administrative state, has this quiet dictatorship, this fourth branch of government that exists in our country, have they earned our trust?
If we don't trust the FBI, we don't trust the CIA, we don't trust the Department of Justice, do we think that whatever law, whatever rules, whatever measures are put into this piece of legislation, is it going to be followed completely?
Are they going to go after Rumble or even threaten Elon Musk with this piece of legislation?
Thomas Massey finishes his argument.
Let's play cut 70, please.
There were some people who were legitimately concerned that this was an overly broad bill, and they got an exclusion written into the bill that I want to read.
It says the term covered company does not include an entity that operates a website or application whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.
Why is this exception in the bill?
Why did somebody feel like they needed this exception if the bill itself only covers social media applications that foreign adversaries are running?
So one of the proponents, one of the people that's pro-legislation says this.
The law would require a fairly holistic review to put another company off the list.
The general enforcement investigation would come from the Attorney General's office for civil penalties.
But that's after the app has been designated by the White House via an interagency process.
In order, for example, Telegram to be even considered, you have to show, one, that it's owned by an entity owned by an adverse sale government, okay, Russia, or is a subsidiary of that company, and that government has control over the app.
Georgia Election Chaos 00:11:51
Okay, Telegram is much different than TikTok in that regard.
Sure, it's owned by a Russian company, but it's not controlled by Putin.
Okay, but is TikTok controlled by Xi?
I guess that's the argument.
Whereas Byte Dance literally has a member of the Chinese Communist Party stationed in its boardroom to align itself with Chinese Communist Party priorities.
Telegram is a harder case.
I mean, the Russian government literally blocked users from it pushing anti-Russian sentiments.
Okay.
But it seems as if this is the formula in recent political times.
We see an issue, we react to it, and we get less freedom and liberty.
That is the equation every single time.
Would this be different?
I don't know.
I see good arguments on both sides.
I don't want TikTok to have an uninterrupted superhighway into the minds of the future of America.
Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
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Say here, Charlie, the more I listen to you and the more people against banning TikTok, I feel this is a bad idea.
I was listening to a mom who was saying that there are many young people bashing Biden on TikTok.
That is, you know, that is true.
Miss Daisy here, who does a lot of great work for us, making sure we remain viral and Mr. Ryan, they were telling me that there's this growing right-wing army on TikTok.
I wouldn't know because I'm banned for a hate speech.
But if that's true, we should have Isabel on the show, the great Isabel Brown, who's very popular on TikTok.
At the same time, I say, if you're popular in a Chinese Communist Party application, that's not that persuasive.
I see it both ways.
And understand, I think, and I don't want to speak too much out of turn here, but if you count YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Getter, Truth, Social Rumble, I think we have 12 million followers between the 10, 11 million?
I can't remember the last number.
And I only say that because we understand the social landscape.
I don't find the data argument for TikTok to be that persuasive.
I'm far more concerned about the social contagion power of its algorithm.
I'm concerned about how many kids are becoming gay, how many kids are becoming trans because of this application.
If another company buys it, it means it stays around.
Will there be changes?
Will there be meaningful alterations?
That means that the company is buying the algorithm.
It's buying its virality.
There's something to TikTok that the Chinese Communist Party and that whole cabal over there, the mafia, that they have figured out how to make that application highly addictive.
I remember before we get on to the breaking Georgia news, I remember Benny Johnson in 2018 said, Charlie, you got to download this app, TikTok.
It's the newest thing.
This is way before it was a big deal, like years before.
And I downloaded it and I hated it.
It's like, what is this dancing stuff and music?
I hated it.
I undownloaded it.
I said, this is the stupidest thing I've ever.
I said, this thing's not going to catch fire.
Good thing I'm not in the prediction business there of what apps are going to work.
And of course, during COVID, it just surged.
Kids had tons of time on their hands.
Parents weren't parenting.
Every parent was giving them a phone.
And there you go.
I do not understand.
And maybe a parent can email me, freedom at charliekirk.com.
I don't understand how you could consider yourself a good parent and allow your child under 16 to have access to TikTok.
If you can make that argument to me, email me freedom at charliekirk.com.
I'm saying even under 16 is a cutoff.
If you have a 14-year-old kid and they're on TikTok, I'm not saying you're a bad parent.
I don't see how you could be a good parent, though.
I don't.
And if you think you're a good parent and your kid's on TikTok and 14 years old, then your kid might turn trans.
That's the reality of this situation.
Remember, when you buy a social media company, you're buying their user base, their algorithm, and their user interface.
Almost none of those things will change.
Are there Chinese Communist Party backdoors in the programming that will allow them to get the data anyways?
Also, the Chinese Communist Party can they not buy the data for pennies on the dollar to third parties?
These are very important questions.
So I want you to keep on going in, email me freedom at charliekirk.com.
And again, I think I'm in some ways able to express an opinion that is purely principled here because I have vile disdain for TikTok.
And yet I still have hesitancy here.
I have hesitancy because of pattern recognition and see what happens when we give the government all this power.
So keep on emailing me freedom at charliekirk.com.
Let's get to the Georgia news.
Okay, some big Georgia news today.
The Fulton County case continues to take body blows from the Georgia court system.
Overall, the Fulton County case, as brought by Fannie Willis, had 41 charges against many people.
This morning, Judge Scott McAfee threw out six of those 41 charges.
Three of the charges applied to Donald Trump.
So the 13 charges against Donald Trump has now been dropped to 10.
Let's play MSNBC reporting play cut 64, please.
We just got a filing from the court.
They're in Fulton County.
What can you tell us?
Yeah, I've just obtained that filing.
And basically, what is happening is that Judge Scott McAfee is dismissing several of the charges here in Georgia against former President Donald Trump, six of the charges in this order.
And so this is certainly notable because the former president was facing a number of charges, but for to have six of them removed is notable.
It's notable.
By the way, when are we going to finally, Blake, can you tell me when are we finally going to get a ruling from this judge on Fannie Willis's love affairs, garage door openers?
Any day now?
We've been hearing that for a while.
Is it possible that maybe the judge did this first before the ruling for a reason?
I'm very curious whether or not this is going to keep her on the case.
I can't imagine that any judge, and this judge seems like a very solid guy, would allow Fannie Willis to continue or her whole office.
The whole thing should be dismissed.
Send it to another county.
MSNBC continues play cut 65.
Potentially momentous decision or monumental decision that could completely derail the case altogether if Judge Scott McAfee were to come out and say he's determined Fonnie Willis is disqualified.
Yeah, you know, a couple of things.
Absolutely.
That's what we're still waiting on.
And that was kind of the bomb that we were expecting to drop this week.
And so this is certainly a separate, unexpected, though certainly consequential ruling from the judge.
So overall, the Fulton County case, as brought by Big Fanny Willis, had 41 charges against many people.
This morning, he threw out six of those 41.
So the drop charges relate to allegations of, quote, soliciting the violation of oath by a public officer, basically the pressure on Brad Rothensberger to find votes in Georgia.
And also the pressure on Georgia lawmakers to vote to throw out the state's 2020 results.
Quote, as written, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes, but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission.
They do not give the defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as defendants could have violated the Constitution and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds or of distinct ways.
Let's not overexaggerate this.
This case is still ongoing.
Most of these charges remain intact.
McAfee says the charges could conceivably be refiled.
But for now, he says that those six charges were so lacking in detail, it was not possible for the defendants to effectively defend themselves.
Now, Judge McAfee still hasn't ruled on whether or not to dismiss Fanny Willis as a prosecutor, as we've said.
We had a big story last week from the federalist Molly Hemingway.
I wish she wouldn't have published it on a Friday.
It was like the last thing that I tweeted out before Shabbat, where the Fulton County case was kicked off by Jordan Fuchs, the chief of staff to Brad Roffensberger, making an illegal recording of the phone call between Rothensberger and Trump.
So a crime very well might have started the entire investigation into Trump.
MSNBC continues play cut 66.
I want to take you back to what started this whole thing in the beginning.
That was that phone call that the former president made to the Republican Secretary of State here in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, essentially asking him to find enough votes to overturn Biden's election victory here in the state.
Well, the judge is basically saying that the charges, the counts related to that phone call, he is throwing out.
This is a solid judge so far.
I got to be honest.
This is a solid ruling.
That was always very bizarre to me that Donald Trump could potentially go to prison for calling the Secretary of State.
And he said, I want you to find the votes.
Okay, so I want to read this.
This is what Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz, made this argument to his great credit.
I want to read this is what Trump was indicted for, and it's now been caught.
Quote, so look, all I want to do is this.
I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state, adding that, quote, there's no way I lost Georgia.
There's no way.
We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.
He didn't say create.
He didn't say invent.
He didn't say manufacture.
He didn't say to manipulate.
He said to find.
So think about it.
There could have been uncounted military absentee ballots.
There could have been oversee what's called Uakava votes or the oversea emissary, oversee U.S. citizen votes.
Any one of those.
I want you to find the votes.
Embedded in the word find is that they already exist.
So is it against the law now to tell somebody to try to say, hey, can you go find votes?
Is it against a lot of chase ballots?
That is exactly why the judge tossed this.
For example, can you go find me a sandwich?
Hey, can you find me a flight to Miami?
It doesn't include stealing the plane.
When you tell somebody, hey, can you find me a cup of coffee?
Or tomorrow when I'm speaking at Cal State Fullerton, I say, hey, Mikey, can you find if there's an In-Out burger nearby?
Is that against the law?
By the way, In-N Outburger is amazing.
If I say, hey, can you find if they have any green tea?
Find means it already exists.
The judge is doing the right thing here.
I'm glad he's tossing it up.
Ken Buck Majority Seat 00:05:53
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What kind of a majority does the House Republican have?
Do you know?
Do we know what seat majority the Republicans have?
Well, McCarthy just resigned at the end of the year.
We have some guy that became a college president in Ohio.
We decided to expel Santos.
What if I told you that now, given recent news, we are one heartbeat away from Speaker Jeffries.
One heartbeat away from Speaker Jeffries.
And I am not being morbid, but if you look at how overweight and old some of those Republicans are, they better drive safe and they better get their cholesterol down.
I'm not joking.
You got 280 people and 100 of them are octogenarians.
You got to watch out.
Congress is joked around as being a nursing home for the ruling class.
Well, Ken Buck, who you got to speculate, Ken Buck is being manipulated.
You got to wonder what exactly is going on with Ken Buck.
I've known Ken Buck for a while.
We stopped talking, obviously.
He is not a good person anymore.
He just became super spiteful.
Ken Buck announced yesterday he's resigning his seat.
Resigning his seat.
Not a health issue.
He's not resigning at the end of the term.
He's just abruptly resigning his seat midterm.
Currently, we have a 219 to 213 seat majority.
Democrats will win a special election next month, and that will go to 214.
Yeah, for you keeping score at home.
That will make us a 216 to 214, one seat majority.
One seat majority.
Here's Ken Buck, who couldn't help himself but hustle on over to CNN to talk about how he's resigning midterm play cut 73.
Really, that miserable right now to be, I mean, from the outside in, it doesn't look that fun.
From the inside in, is it that bad that you're saying I'm done?
It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I've been in Congress.
And having talked to former members, it's the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress.
But I'm leaving because I think there's a job to do out there that I want to go do.
This is repulsive.
You asked to be elected.
You didn't want it.
Why did you run for re-election then?
Why are you resigning in the middle of your term?
What job do you have to do out there?
Go be a lobbyist?
Go work for CNN?
You have eight months left.
And by the way, you don't even work eight of those months.
You're off like the entire month of July and August.
It's an election year.
So it'll be off in like September, October.
You can go vacation in Key West and hang out.
You're just going to betray your constituents and with it, the House Republican majority.
So it's one of two explanations.
Number one, it could be spite, that Ken Buck just is full of spite.
Or number two, that Ken Buck has done some very dark and dirty things and the intel agencies are blackmailing him.
Don't take my word for it.
Remember, Congressman Burchett?
I don't think we can get that super quick, right, Ryan?
Burchett said, hey, somebody comes, whispers in your ear, and they say, hey, we've got a picture of you with a naked girl, and you better do what you tell you to do.
Is Ken Buck being actively blackmailed by the dark arts machine of the Imperial Capital of Washington, D.C.?
So for those of you keeping score at home, we started with, I think, a four or five-seat majority, if I'm not mistaken.
We are now down to a one-seat majority.
Kicked out Santos.
McCarthy resigns.
Ken Buck resigns.
You also have to wonder: is this sort of a jab against Lauren Bobert, CD3 in Colorado?
They know that if she goes for the special election, CD4 will be vacant until January if she wins it.
Telling you, one of those old dudes who's had one too many helpings of pancakes, waffles, and donuts.
If all of a sudden something bad happens, God forbid, all of a sudden, our House majority will be flipped.
Ken Buck resigning March 22nd.
In nine days, our House majority will go down to effectively one vote.
Just a reminder: tomorrow I'll be at Cal State Fullerton.
I will not be hosting the show tomorrow.
Producer Andrew will be.
We do these amazing things where I go to campus for a couple hours and talk to these students, and the videos go very viral.
It just happens to be right during our show.
And so, producer Andrew, he can do a great job and he will.
Joining us now is Raheem Kassam from National Pulse.
Did I get that right?
Lobbyist Cash Confusion 00:14:14
Is that right, Raheem?
All right, good.
I always get the second part a little confused.
So, Raheem, I have a lot of respect for you.
I haven't made up my mind yet, but I'm tilting in one direction.
So, make the case for this banning TikTok bill that has now passed the House.
Yeah, thanks, Charlie.
I have been very animated about this today because I didn't quite realize just how much the club for, we used to call it the Club for China Growth, the Club for China Growth Money and all of that was splashing around Washington, D.C., trying to convince people that somehow it's a good idea to allow the Chinese Communist Party and its tentacles to remain in American public life.
And, you know, this morning we saw some totally egregious, false statements by people who I respect, people whose work that I have followed for a long time, Thomas Massey being one of them, Rand Paul being another, who were reading in part from the bill.
But I just happen to have a full copy of the bill right here.
And up at the National Pulse, by the way, we've published just now an article by somebody who worked in the Trump administration on the TikTok ban itself specifically, who says this is exactly what we wanted.
This is exactly what we were working on during the Trump administration.
So let me break it down for the people who think that somewhere in this bill contains provisions for Joe Biden or the U.S. government to censor them on X or Twitter or anywhere else.
This bill is very specific about foreign adversary control of applications, websites, and it goes into detail about what foreign adversary control actually means.
I've done an entire video on this this morning where I walk people through.
This is specifically about TikTok, bike dance, and the Chinese Communist Party.
And it does not and could not apply to anything in any person, website, outlet in the domestic United States.
So that is the first part of this.
I think we have to just, there's a lot of money, a lot of TikTok cash floating around Washington, D.C. right now to try to convince you that this Republican-written bill, this MAGA Republican written bill, is somehow going to end up with the censorship of you or I. Let me tell you something, Charlie.
If there was any semblance of a chance of that, of the Biden regime going after us on the grounds of this, I would be the first to start ringing the alarm because I would be one of the first that it would be used against.
But that's not what's in this bill.
What is in this bill is very specific, and it basically says: look, if the company is owned 20% or more by a foreign adversary and that foreign adversary is spelled out bike dance, TikTok, Chinese Communist Party, then it either needs to divest itself of that investment or it cannot broadcast and be utilized in the United States.
I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing.
It's a very tight bill.
It's only 12 pages.
People can read this for themselves.
Don't take my word for it.
And I think it's everything that they battled for during the Trump administration.
So let's just take and I hear you and all that.
The foreign adversary, though, Telegram, for example, has connections to Russia.
What would prevent them from going after my beloved Telegram?
Well, specifically, this bill actually talks about bike dance and TikTok.
So there's nothing in this bill that would necessarily predicate them being able to go after Telegram.
For instance, I'll quote from you here.
Number three, foreign adversary controlled application means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented immersive technology application that is operated directly or indirectly through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate of any of the following: Bike Dance, TikTok, a subsidiary or successor to an entity identified in clause A, or that is controlled by the foreign adversary.
That is not the case with Telegram.
That is not the case with any of the other platforms we use, quite frankly.
I use a bunch of them.
This is very specific.
And look, if there's a problem with this bill, for me, it's actually that it doesn't go far enough because it has this 20% ownership threshold in it for the Chinese Communist Party.
So what they could do is actually drop their shareholding to 19% and actually get away with the provisions against that in this bill.
If there are problems on the libertarian right with this bill, if there are freedom and free speech implications that people are concerned about with this bill, well, then I'm happy to look at another draft.
If Tom Massey or anybody else wants to draft what they would like this to look like, fine.
But they're not doing that.
They're just saying, hey, we don't like the idea of the government being able to control social media in this country.
Let me tell you this.
This is not about giving the U.S. government more power over what you get to say in the United States.
It's about taking the power away from the Chinese Communist Party.
I don't know how we've got to a position where suddenly everybody believes that a China-owned application that is in almost every young American's phones is okay, but we weren't there last year.
What changed?
This changed.
Yeah, so talk about the, again, I'm neutral.
I don't have very strong opinions on this.
That's not true.
I have strong opinions.
I haven't made up my mind because I do have fear of government overreach.
And I've seen them lie.
And I see the government and the executive branch and the administrative state just not follow the law.
But I hear you clearly.
And I think TikTok is a societal toxin and poison.
And I wish we could just ban it without any sort of ambiguity.
So I'm there with you 100%.
What kind of money is flowing around here?
Can you tell us who, what, when, who's involved?
And how can a foreign country lobby for U.S. legislation?
Or are Americans involved in this?
Well, so this is what I actually think this is all about beneath the surface.
And here, here I go putting my tinfoil hat on, right?
I suspect that what's really going on here is that Americans like Jeffrey Yass, who are heavily invested, I mean, heavily invested, billionaire, I mean, billionaires with billions invested in TikTok, are attempting to leverage organizations like the Club for Growth.
They're funneling money in.
The Club for Growth is in tandem then lobbying on Capitol Hill.
One of our people that we know quite well, Kellyanne Conway, is lobbying on Capitol Hill, using that money, TikTok money, to try and get people to change their minds over this.
But critically, they're also lobbying President Trump.
And here's what I think is going to happen.
If it can be shown through bank transactions, financial transactions, whatever, that money flowed into the Trump campaign at the same time that President Trump changed his position on TikTok, then the Biden regime and Merrick Garland will say Donald Trump is an asset of China and they will start to do the whole Russiagate thing all over again, but this time with China.
I actually think that's what they're really hoping happens here.
But to answer your question directly, look, it's investors like Jeffrey Yass who give a lot of money to conservative politicians on Capitol Hill and it's groups like Club for Growth.
And look, there will always be, always be, and there should not never be, a situation where people are concerned about the civil liberties and the free speech implications of government taking these steps.
But again, ladies and gentlemen, please don't take my word for it.
Read the bill for yourself because a lot of people are pulling out.
I mean, Thomas Massey, I thought this was gross, by the way.
Thomas Massey pulled out one part of this bill, right, where it says, quote, qualified divestiture.
The term qualified divestiture means a divestiture or similar transaction that the president determines through an interagency process would result in the relevant covered company no longer being controlled by a foreign adversary.
And B, the president determines through an interagency process precludes the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship between the United States, blah, And they're pulling that out and they're saying, see, this means that Biden can just arbitrarily decide.
And they don't show you the 10 pages that went before that, which stipulates, no, it's only TikTok and ByteDance that that's applying to.
So I think people are being disingenuous and dishonest about it.
Read the bill for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen.
This is about stopping CCP influence in America.
I thought we were all for that.
I want to play around with, but will it actually, so let's pretend it passes and it gets signed and you're making some great points, but it just gets sold to an American company.
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So Raheem, what do you say to the people that will say, but it doesn't ban it?
It just makes an American company buy it.
So this will potentially be owned by Google or Facebook.
Yeah, well, I think that's far better than it being owned by the Chinese Communist Party for a start.
But I also think that there are other options here.
I mean, I saw that Rumble yesterday put out a statement and said, look, they are happy to join a consortium, specifically as a cloud hosting partner in a takeover.
And that is something that the bill addresses, right?
It's talking about divestiture or sale.
And it would be 180 days after the bill passes that this would have to happen by.
So, it doesn't even necessarily impact this coming presidential election.
Let's say if the Senate gets to it in a month and then it goes to Biden's desk, I mean, it takes you up until after the election to actually have anything like that happen.
Yeah, look, there will be American companies chomping at the bit to try and get their hands on something like this.
It's an incredibly powerful platform.
But at the same time, American companies will also have American oversight already written into American law via your legislative branch.
And if there were to be any overstep, any overstretch, especially on a bill like this, I would imagine this current Supreme Court especially would have no problem jumping in and saying, hold on a second, guys, this is not what the bill says.
This is not what you're allowed to do.
So, I think, you know, President Trump had some wonderful Supreme Court picks.
I would expect them to uphold the rule of law when it comes to something like this.
But what is the alternative here, Charlie?
To continue to allow the Chinese Communist Party via bite dance to impact America, impact your elections, foist the pandemic upon you, drill narratives into young Americans' heads that, by the way, they're not doing that with the Chinese version of TikTok.
You don't see the degenerate content that you see in America on the Chinese version of TikTok.
This is a foreign power tool that is being used by a foreign adversary.
And let's be clear about this, by the way, as well.
We're not talking about an allied nation.
We're not talking about a European nation.
This bill would never exist.
This is literally the first line of this bill says to protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary-controlled applications.
I think it hits the nail on the head.
I'm very interested in people reading this for themselves rather than like having little chunks that they see on people's Twitter feeds.
It's imperative for citizen stakeholders to do that.
It's 12 pages.
Go and read it.
So, Raheem, can you our audience is confused about one thing?
And we're getting lots of emails, freedom at charliekirk.com.
President Trump is against this piece of legislation.
He was once in favor of banning TikTok.
Help me understand.
I don't want to speak out of turn, but look, the way it's been described to me is that there is a lot of money on the table.
There's a lot of club for growth cash on the table.
And one of the people who is funding the club for growth in a massive way at the moment is Jeffy Ass.
Jeff Yass is hugely invested in TikTok.
So the campaign needs cash.
I mean, it needs a lot of cash.
And this is, again, I don't want to make it seem like there is a pay-for-play going on here, but this is politics.
This is the kind of compromise that politicians and campaigns and candidates often have to make.
I'm not sure, by the way, that President Trump is fully sold on the position of opposing the ban.
I know he sent some tweets about it or truths about it, sorry, last week, but I'm also hearing at the same time that he's not completely sold on the idea that this is what he wants to do.
And that those truths were kind of him gauging the reaction to this from his own base, as he often does, by the way.
So I would say, and people can take me to the cleaners on this if they want to, if it doesn't happen, I would say that we are going to experience a further nuancing of President Trump positions in the next week over this.
That is what I am told.
That is what I expect.
Where do you think the base is on this?
Because Congress is acting as if there's massive majority support.
Where do you think the base is at with this?
I think torn, honestly, and fairly so.
You know, the way this bill has been kind of broadcast and the way that the TikTok lobbyists have thrown cash at this to try and confuse the issue, it's no surprise to me that members of the ordinary public are confused over this.
This is why I didn't explain a video that is available on Guesser on Truth on X on Instagram, not on TikTok, that I published this morning to walk people through it and say, look, I know what you're hearing.
That's not in the bill.
I thought it was really disingenuous what Elon Musk tweeted about the other day.
He has his own Chinese business interests, by the way.
And so the only thing I can say to people is bother to get down into the nitty-gritty for yourselves.
I think if you read it, and I have multiple times over backwards, there's no doubt in my mind that this is specifically targeted at TikTok in China.
And I think that's right.
I think that's good.
I think we should all want the Chinese Communist Party out of our lives, especially after what they did during the pandemic, especially with the narratives that they push via TikTok with transgenderism, especially with an election coming up.
I think the less China you have, the better.
Musk's Disingenuous Tweet 00:00:23
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Thank you so much.
Thanks so much for listening.
Everybody, email us as alwaysfreedom at charliekirk.com.
Thanks so much for listening and God bless.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.
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