According to President Trump, Bill Gates' Microsoft is very interested in buying the social media App TikTok. But as TikTok's owners do not want to sell, will this be a mafia deal where either their signature or their brains will be on the contract? And...how is Bill Gates owning TikTok any better than its current owners? Also today, Matt Taibbi joined Tucker Carlson recently to discuss the need for even more transparency on how the government colluded with companies to maintain silence over COVID's origins.
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
Dr. Paul is off today, so I will be handling your morning entertainment.
A couple of things that we want to talk about this morning.
The first one we've talked about a lot, and some would say we've talked about it too much, which is the issue of TikTok.
The attempt by Congress to pass a law to ban this app, the social media app that people use to make videos and to communicate with each other, and the reaction by a lot of Americans who enjoy the product, millions and millions, of course.
And then, just on the eve when the ban was supposed to go into effect, President Trump, through an executive order, gave it a bit longer of a lease on life, about 75 more days, if I'm not mistaken.
And people say, why are you focusing?
Why do you keep focusing on this?
Because there's something deeply anti-American about the idea that you can demonize a form of communication to the point where people are scrambling to say, well, we need to ban it.
We need to ban it.
And that's what's happened.
And there's also some of the worst aspects of prejudice involved.
The Chinese are using it to corrupt our precious bodily fluids.
It's all sort of harkens back to this Cold War issue.
And the whole thing is premised on a fallacy in the first place.
You know, the idea is that the CCP, those evil Chinese communists, are using this app where kids dance and communicate and do other things.
First of all, to indoctrinate them to what?
To become communist?
I mean, I don't see there's any big move to kids becoming communist.
To what end?
They're stealing their data.
To what end?
What are they going to do with the data on millions of young Americans?
It doesn't make any rational sense.
But the worst aspect of it really is this sort of red scare.
Well, the news today is it looks like Microsoft is in talks to purchase TikTok.
Now, the owners of TikTok, and we'll get into this in a video in a second, it's a broad consortium.
It's not just one person.
It's not just, you know, Mousy Dong or something who owns it.
They haven't wanted to sell.
They don't want to sell it, but they're being forced to sell it.
And what I would call is a sort of a mafia move.
Hey, that's a nice business there.
We'd hate to take it over from you, which is exactly what they're doing.
So in walks Bill Gates and Microsoft, who, by the way, has just made his amends with Trump.
It's just, like everyone else, has come and kissed the ring for President Trump.
Well, it looks like they're in talks to purchase TikTok.
At least maybe they're one-sided talk.
Maybe they're talking to themselves.
But go ahead and put on this first clip.
Now, this is from Zero Hedge.
Trump says Microsoft in talks to purchase TikTok.
Late Monday night aboard Air Force One, President Donald Trump told reporters that Microsoft is in discussions with a China-based tech giant, Byte Dance, to acquire TikTok, according to Bloomberg.
I would say yes, he said when they asked him, a lot of interest in TikTok.
There's great interest in TikTok.
He continued.
Now go to the second one.
And this is sort of the giveaway.
And this is the other plan.
In recent days, AI startup Perplexity proposed a merger plan with TikTok with the U.S. government receiving half of the new company.
Well, there is a word for that.
It's the F-word.
It's not the F-word you're thinking.
It's fascism.
So the U.S. government wants to take over.
I thought the problem is the Chinese government was owning it.
No, it's okay if the U.S. government does.
So anyway, according to the story, earlier Monday, Trump told House Republican leaders at the Trump National Door outside Miami that he previously pushed for a ban in the video app under national security grounds, which is bogus.
However, he changed his mind due to pro-Trump content creators that flourished on the platform.
At least he's honest about that.
Now, here's what he says.
We'll see what happens.
Here's Trump.
We're going to have a lot of people bidding on it.
And if we can save all that voice and all the jobs, And China won't be involved.
We don't want China involved.
But we'll see what happens, he told lawmakers referring to TikTok.
So again, here's the old saw that China, that the Chinese Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is sort of turning all the dials and turning the kids communist.
Well, in fact, it's not true.
And here's an excellent rundown from Senator Ron Paul.
Really blows away this fallacy that this is a product of the Chinese Communist Party.
If we could put on that first clip and listen to the whole thing, here he is on Fox schooling a, let's just say, less than intellectually adept person on the ownership of TikTok.
Let's listen in on Senator Paul.
10% by the two Chinese software engineers who developed it, the entrepreneurs who began the business, and 20% by their employees.
We have to go back to the beginning.
7,000 of whom are American.
So it's a very diverse ownership.
It's not the most important fact of all of this, and it needs to be debated, not assumed as a fact.
The company is owned 60% by international investors, 20% by the two Chinese software engineers who developed it, the entrepreneurs who began the business, and 20% by their employees, 7,000 of whom are American.
So it's a very diverse ownership.
It's not owned by the Chinese government.
Allegations against a company owned by Americans, and you have to prove it in court.
Who owns that company?
Who owns that company?
SpikeDance is owned by China.
No, it's not.
See, that's a lie, and you're defaming the country.
You're defaming the company.
60% of it is owned by international investors.
20% is owned by the software developers who are Chinese.
And 20% is owned by the employees, 7,000 of whom are Americans.
So it's a company.
But it's not owned by TikTok.
It's not about profits.
Who owns the algorithm?
TikTok owns their own algorithm, and it's actually not owned by TikTok.
ByteDance.
And who owns ByteDance?
Chinese government.
No, they don't.
See, you've just told a lie, Brian.
You can't say on TV something that's a lie about a company.
That is an out-and-out lie, and it's provable.
It is a lie.
And they're not owned by the Chinese government.
TikTok is owned privately.
Well, KillMeet is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
I don't think there's anyone who would dispute that.
But Senator Paul lays it out.
This is a total fallacy.
This is all completely based on lies that this is the Chinese government that owns TikTok.
Now, why get so upset about an app?
Because it's not really about banning an app for national security reasons.
It's about silencing people whose voices they don't want to be heard.
And what's happening on TikTok?
Well, to a large degree, people are talking about things in the Middle East that you don't see in the mainstream media.
There's a lot of opposition to Israel's behavior over the last couple of years in Gaza.
There's also a lot of resistance to the mainstream medical community, to the vaccines, to things that have been forced upon us.
We find out that the medical establishment has lied to us for the past five years about viruses and such.
There's a lot of reaction and people are speaking freely about it.
There's a very robust debate about it.
So let's go to the next JPEG.
Now, here's Senator Paul talking about TikTok.
He says, why am I joining TikTok just as the government ban begins?
Because I don't like being told what to do.
I don't like being told what I can think or say.
The courts may think TikTok is excluded from the First Amendment.
I don't.
I joined TikTok today as a form of civil disobedience.
To the 170 million Americans using TikTok, don't give up, don't give in, resist.
And that's a very strong statement.
And I want to actually, this will be Rand Paul Day, but I do want to do another clip from the senator where he expounds a little bit more upon this idea that this is not about national security, it's about censorship.
Put that second clip on if you can.
Let's listen to that whole clip of Senator Paul.
They tell you this is about China, about security and safety.
That's a lie.
This is about control, about fear, about silencing you.
A government that can ban an app can ban a book.
A government that can silence a platform can silence a person.
Today it's TikTok.
Tomorrow it's your news.
Next week, it's your voice.
Some politicians think the First Amendment has fine print.
It doesn't.
The right to free speech doesn't come with exceptions.
Not for apps, not for ideas, not for politicians who think they know better than you.
They don't ban speech to protect you.
They ban speech to control you.
That's why today I'm introducing a bipartisan, bicameral bill to repeal the TikTok ban.
If we don't stop this now, where does it end?
To every American who believes in liberty, stand up, speak out, fight back, because freedom isn't given, it's taken.
They tell you this is about China.
That's the case.
It's about silencing you.
And to those who are concerned, they don't want the Chinese collecting data.
If that even is true, then don't use TikTok.
If you don't want to hear people discussing things that you disagree with, then don't go on TikTok.
It's very simple.
But by using these as excuses to ban the company or to force its sale, you know, I think this is what underscores the fact that this is about censorship.
We're talking about selling, forcing a sale with a gun to the head of TikTok to Bill Gates.
This is not a person that normally you would associate with free speech.
Have we forgotten the last five years what Bill Gates has done during COVID, the efforts he's made to silence and shut down debate?
And which turned out we've all been proven right who were skeptical about the things that Bill Gates was endorsing and promoting.
Bill Gates is a kind of Fauci-like character.
He doesn't even have a medical degree.
That's the person.
That's Microsoft is going to be buying this.
And we don't think they're going to censor.
Well, we know that Bill Gates is all for censorship.
Let's listen to this third clip.
This is Bill Gates talking about we need to use AI to censor Americans.
We've got too much First Amendment.
If we can find that third audio clip and listen to Gates We should have free speech, but if you're inciting violence, if you're causing people not to take vaccines, you know, where are those boundaries that even the U.S. should have rules?
And then if you have rules, you know, what is it?
Is there some AI that encodes those rules because you have billions of activity?
And if you catch it a day later, the harm is done.
So there you go.
There's a little bit of an insight into Bill Gates' thinking.
How dare you convince people that the products that have proven to be ineffective and harmful, how dare you say them?
We need something to zap.
We need lasers out there to zap it before it even gets out.
This is the guy that's going to take over TikTok and we think it's going to remain a relatively free speech app?
It's absolutely not.
And it's a slippery slope.
When oligarchs like Gates take over things like this, you better be clear that the debate will be quelched.
And final on this particular topic, going to that next JPEG.
This is the guy you want owning TikTok, right?
This guy that wants to force a shot in your arm.
So it won't be decided now, but people really need to understand what this is all about.
It's not about the Chinese.
It's not about us being indoctrinated to become communists.
It's about shutting Americans up, and we cannot stand for it.
We've already had five years of it.
Seeking The Truth00:06:08
It's time to stand up.
So the second thing that we want to talk about today, Matt Taibbi, great journalist, great in the classic tradition of muck-raking journalism, a great figure who's only gotten bigger in the past 10 years.
Well, he was on with Tucker yesterday, and he was talking about another big issue, which is somewhat related to what we were saying.
If you go into that next clip, this is how the Zero Heads wrote it up.
Gigantic rat's nest.
Taibbi hints that FBI communications with COVID scientists will be exposed.
Now, this is very important because we had sort of a lackluster investigation into the collusion not only between the FBI and private companies to censor Americans, but between the FBI and the government and the COVID scientists to shut down any attempt to figure out just what the heck happened.
And now we had the CIA came out with a preliminary report saying that they believe that the signs point to it being a lab leak.
We don't know the truth, but we are getting closer to the truth.
Now go to that next clip because this is very important, I think, for us.
First of all, it's very important to get to the truth.
We have to expose all the lies we were told.
And there's real consequences, real world consequences to these lies.
People died because of these lies.
So here's Matt on with Tucker.
And it's a bit of a long quote, but it's important.
He says, there are so many different areas where they're going to have to investigate and re-investigate.
We just went through a period where there was a mass stonewalling of Congress when it was trying to investigate what happened with COVID.
There were key people like Peter Jack from the EcoHealth Alliance who just didn't appear answer subpoenas, right?
There are documents that we know exist that we're going to get now with FBI communications between the Bureau and a lot of these scientists dating back 10 years.
And it's going to tell a crazy story, a really interesting story.
And here's where I highlighted it.
This is important.
There is a reason why Fauci's pardon is backdated to 2014, because that's the time period they're going to have to start looking, which is when did we start defying the ban on gain of function research?
We clearly did.
That is pretty established at this point.
Now go to the next one.
Here's what else he's had to say on with Tucker.
And he's talking about what connection did this have with the Wuhan thing.
What kind of advance notice did we get?
What kind of lies were we told about it?
Who was responsible for those lies?
What information did we get about the inefficacy of the vaccine?
And how did that connect to statements by the CDC and the White House?
Now I have underscored this next part.
This also connects to the censorship issue in a major way because there was a massive effort to control the public conversation about this that went through the health agencies.
Now this is why this relates, this second story that we're covering today relates to the first story, because it is about censorship.
You can just leave that up for a second.
This is about censorship.
It's about them not wanting you to know what they were up to, what they were doing behind the curtain.
And this goes on, Matt goes on saying, it directs the Department of Justice to come up with a comprehensive review of all the censorship stuff.
So we're going to find out about that.
Just think COVID is a gigantic rat's nest of stuff.
Every direction they look, put it back up, please.
Every direction they look, there's going to be to find something revelatory.
So that's very, very important.
And to round out the trifecta of this being a Senator Rand Paul Day, and it's just by coincidence, really, we can go to that final clip.
Senator Paul now is in the unique position as chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee in the Senate to be the individual who can rip the lid off of all of this.
It really is an historic position that he has to expose us to the truth.
Almost like a truth commission, he has the power of subpoena.
He's already exercised that power of subpoena in this past week or so.
Now, here's a tweet that he put out.
Here's a post he put out on X on the 20th.
He said, if there was ever any doubt as to who bears responsibility for the COVID pandemic, Biden's pardon of Fauci forever seals the deal.
As chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, I will not rest until the entire truth of the cover-up is exposed.
Fauci's pardon will only serve as an accelerant to pierce the veil of deception.
Ignominious.
Anthony Fauci will go down in history as the first government scientist to be preemptively pardoned for a crime.
So I think the powers that be are desperate to prevent this edifice from being exposed.
You can take it down now.
Behind the screen, they're trying to remain hidden.
And I think we all should support Senator Paul and what he's doing because if we build our society based on truth, based on free expression, then, you know, waving the flag and saying America first doesn't really mean anything.
It's empty slogans.
They waved a lot of flags in the Soviet Union as well, but they were empty slogans.
So we have to have society based on truth, and Dr. Paul talks about it all the time.
The people who believe in truth versus the nihilists who don't believe there is any truth at all.
It's all about political expediency.
So we need to get to the truth.
We need to not let them censor the truth by forcing companies to sell to preferred oligarchs or what have you.
So we're at a very interesting point in history right now.
We need to keep our eyes wide open and see what's going to happen and stay engaged.
I want to thank everyone for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.