Top Democratic senator goes on Fox News and admits that 'Donald Trump was right' about TikTok
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, admitted Sunday that former President Donald Trump was "right" about the security threat that TikTok poses to Americans.
What did Warner say?
Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Warner elaborated on his admission last week that Trump correctly warned about the security dangers of TikTok, the addicting video-based social media platform.
"I think Donald Trump was right," Warner declared. "I mean, TikTok is an enormous threat."
The Virginia Democrat then explained why exactly Trump was right, namely that TikTok collects massive amounts of data and that TikTok is beholden to the Chinese Community Party.
"It is a massive collector of information, oftentimes of our children. They can visualize even down to your keystrokes," Warner explained. "So, if you're a parent and you got a kid on TikTok, I would be very, very concerned. All of that data that your child is inputting and receiving is being stored somewhere in Beijing.
"The second problem is that TikTok in a sense is a broadcasting network in a sense. And if the Chinese communist party and TikTok, at the end of the day, has to be reliant on the communist party. The China law states that," he added.
Warner disclosed that the Justice Department is working on a "solution" to minimize TikTok's security threat, but described the effort as a "huge mountain to climb."
"The second problem is that TikTok in a sense is a broadcasting network in a sense. And if the Chinese communist party and TikTok, at the end of the day, has to be reliant on the communist party. The China law states that," he added.
Warner disclosed that the Justice Department is working on a "solution" to minimize TikTok's security threat, but described the effort as a "huge mountain to climb."
The comments came in response to anchor Shannon Bream asking Warner about a remark he made last week in which he indicated that American leaders should have taken action against TikTok when Trump was warning about it years ago.
"As painful as it is for me to say, if Donald Trump was right and we could’ve taken action then, that’d have been a heck of a lot easier than trying to take action in November of 2022,” Warner told technology news outlet Recode. "The sooner we bite the bullet, the better."
What did Trump do?
The U.S. government considered banning TikTok in 2020 because Trump believed the platform was a threat to national security.
TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is connected to the Chinese Communist Party. The platform is also known for being built essentially as spyware that collects an inordinate amount of data on its users.
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