Let me touch on this story involving TikTok, the restoration of TikTok, because it was canceled as blacked out. You know, it was blacked out in the United States of America as you can see there. You know, people crying, kids crying, everybody going crazy and stuff like that. And then it ultimately was restored, and naturally, now President Donald Trump, then President elect Donald Trump, was taking credit for its restoration
at its celebration and stuff like that. But before I get into that, I want to show you Donald Trump speaking about TikTok years ago when he was the president, and then him speaking about it recently and taking credit for its restoration.
Take a look.
When I wanted to disable TikTok three years ago, I was met with opposition from Rhinos, Democrats and everyone else. They actually went to court in an effort to stop me.
We're looking at TikTok.
We may be banning TikTok, we may be doing some other things. There are a couple of options, but a lot of things are happening, so we'll see what happens. But we are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok.
We gave them until September fifteenth.
After that they got a close shot. Okay, that's TikTok. We're looking at TikTok.
We're thinking about making a decision.
We're going to be watching the hearing today very closely because there's no quote what the big tech company been doing.
And as of today, TikTok is back.
So you know, I did a little TikTok thing. We have a guy TikTok. Jack is a young.
Kid, like twenty one years old, and we hired this guy and I went on TikTok and you believe.
What I'll do to win an election, And we went on.
TikTok and Republicans have never won the young vote that you vote. They win a lot of much, but they never won the youth vote. We won the youth vote by thirty six points.
So I like TikTok.
I like him now he likes it. Amazing what election time can do for you. So I's got TikTok because the executive for TikTok was at the inauguration. Of course, Jeff Bezos for Amazon was there, Mark Zuckerberg for Meta Facebook, Instagram, he was there, and of course Elon Musk for X is there.
Notice how your.
Now president is insulating himself with individuals who control airwave spend, et cetera. Because all the newspapers in the country, all the television networks, they don't have the reach these streaming platforms have, and you have an opportunity to.
Control dissemination of messages.
Though world over everybody don't have ESPN and Fox News and all of this stuff. But they got TikTok, they got asks, they got meta Facebook, Instagram, that kind of thing they got that these most of them do. Anyway, before I get to Representative Connor on his show with me, I wanted you to see what Roland Martin had to say about this whole TikTok brew ha ha and now President Donald Trump take a look.
So let me explain to y'all real quick, the con artist Donald Trump. It was Donald Trump who called for the band of TikTok. It was Donald Trump who pushed Congress to get it done. More Republicans voted to ban TikTok than Democrats. Go look at Charlie kirk okay Trump's biggest ass kisser. You know what he was saying. He was tweets saying, we've got to get rid of TikTok. The Chinese government owns it. It's old. We have to save TikTok. So Donald Trump is going to try to set.
Him up as oh I saved.
TikTok when he was the one who initiated the band. Y'all got to stop falling for the okie dope with this con artist. Okay, just stop falling for it. And so if he tries to force to be sold to American he wants it to be sold to his conservative folks so they can control TikTok, Twitter, Meta, Instagram and all the platforms.
Don't be conned exactly. Rolandard is absolutely right.
The only thing Roland Maart did wrong in that video was the outfit that he was wearing because the Houston, Texas just got sent to him by against City chiefs. Although controversially, I might add, because so many people thought that that phantom call against uh in favor of Patrick Mahomes, against Will Anderson and those boys was ridiculous.
But the only thing wrong with what Roland Martin, what Roland Martin.
Showed you there was the outfit he was wearing because they home in Kansas City Chiefs are NAFC Championship game. Yet again, having said all of that, he's not wrong, we could see that boo boo to fool because that we know exactly what Donald Trump is doing with this regard, because he wants TikTok to be purchased, you know, away from byte Dance, which is China owned and owned by some US cooperation, probably some conservative arm and yet as a result, they'd be beholden to him and his messaging.
And so you have a situation where it'd be again TikTok, Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Acts, etc. You know, Amazon with its distribution on because it ain't just goods and services they got, they got a streaming on itself that is formidable and is growing every single day with Jeff Bezos at the helm. Okay, I got news for you. Look at who Donald Trump has surrounded himself with. He's insulated himself and at any given moment as the president of the United States, he's gonna have
a heavy hand. The Dams saw this, but you still messed up because you didn't have a candidate to beat them. It's that simple. You did this to yourself. That's just the truth. But that's a different subject for another day. Staying with TikTok. There is a Democratic representative that's been doing good work and has been saying some very productive things on this subject for very substantive reasons. He is a representative out of the seventeenth District of California. He
is mister Roe Connor. He is with me right now, Representative Connor. How are you so? How's everything going?
Good? Steven, and thank you for having me on your show. I've been a fan for years, so I'm glad to be.
On the honor and privileges mindset. Before I even get into these questions about TikTok, I'm assuming that you, yourself, your family, your homes are safe, and everything is okay with you out in California. I think it'd be appropriate to start there, sir, are how are things?
I appreciate it. I'm up in the north of the state, Silicon Valley, so we've been safe. Unfortunately, some of the constituents have family friends in LA which has just been devastated. I'm glad we were earlier, and I'm glad your home is okay. But I'm sure you know a ton of people who just lost their homes devastated. Something people haven't been able to move back in. It's just been awful, and I hope the country can come together to rebuild
and forget the politics. And people's lives are instake, their homes are at stake. We got to come together on this.
I completely agree with you, absolutely, and that's something that we are going to talk about in the days, the weeks, and the months to come.
Make no mistake about that.
But one of the other things that have basically rocked the foundation of America at least for at least for a little bit, was the specter of TikTok being canceled. And obviously you've been a preeminent voice on that issue. Just to educate my audience, tell the audience about what the whole TikTok issue is about and what your position on it has been all along.
There is a concern that TikTok is owned by a Chinese Communist Party's affiliate, is some company connected to the Chinese Communist Party. Now six of the investors are American, But the concern was could our data go to the Chinese government or could the Chinese government interfere with the algorithm? And what I said is okay, if you have those concerns,
first of all, show evidence of it. Show evidence that it's TikTok doing it and not data brokers or other social media And let's pass a law saying it's illegal to take any American data and give it to the Chinese Communist Party, or pass the law saying the Chinese Communist Party shouldn't be interfering on any social media algorithm. But instead what the law did is it called for banning it. And I'll tell you I talked to some of the people in TikTok I and folks think it's
all song and dance or just sports, it's not. I mean, I talked to a mom. Her husband cheated on her. She's got four kids, two toddlers, two special needs kids. She was broke on one of her friends couches for four months, and then she'd started telling her story on TikTok. And she makes sixty to seventy grand to take care for kids. Someone else is paying rent. And all of
this was going to get shut down. And so we had a one point three million people in forty three forty eight hours sign a petition saying keep this up. And fortunately, even though it went dark, it's now up. And I don't think banning the app.
Is the solution when people wanted it banned.
Who exactly were these people number one and number two? What was the most profound argument you were concerned was being made to indeed ban TikTok.
Well, a lot of these people were China Hawks. They said that we can't have China have any control over Americans data. And if I actually thought that our data was getting in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party through TikTok, and that there was no other way to prevent it, i'd before the ban. But there are other solutions. The Texas Project, for example, says make sure all the data is managed by Oracle, and you can't have any
of the data leave the United States. If I really thought the Chinese Counties Party was doing this algorithm to manipulate things, I'd be concerned. That was the concern. But look, Steve and I we have a history in this country of using national security concerns for government overreach. We've in turned all the Japanese with FDR maccarthier, we called everyone a communists. I think this was government overreach.
You know, I've thought about that myself.
The thing that kind of scared me, what have you is when they kept like you called them China hawks. I mean, that's an appropriate way to label those folks. But when they brought in issues of using these apps, these algorithms, etc. To sort of spy on us, to indoctrinate our children with certain things. And then you see, I have two daughters, and you see how addicted these
young minds are to TikTok. The part about adults using it as a small business essentially to generate revenue for themselves, that's entirely different than youngsters using it it being a form of education for them, a news outlet for them in various situations, many situations, I might add, what about those China hawks who made those concerns? How much did that move you if at all?
Well, the young people reaching out moved me a lot. I had a lot of messages and nieces who I've been in Congress eight years who've never cared about a single thing I did, who suddenly started texting me saying, please save TikTok. And there's a lot of good uses of TikTok, even for young folks, whether they're building community of whether they're learning on education. Now social media has harms.
And I'm not going to deny that some of the social media has harmed young people, particularly young girls with eating disorder issues or suicidal thoughts. And so fine, let's pass out there's a Kids Online Safety Act that says, let's create a standard so that any of these apps, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, should not be prolific writing things to young folks that are going to cause harm. But you can't just ban the app and take away a sense of community for folks. And this most of
the people in Congress. Here's the hypocrisy that I want to point out. They voted for the ban, and then they go tell their campaign teams go get me the most followers on TikTok because that's where the voters are. And everyone, every member of Congress, every senator, everyone running for president, wanted to grow their following. So there was a lot of hypocrisy of the whole thing.
We sort of had a TikTok, the own of TikTok.
He was seeing at now President Donald Trump's inauguration.
What are we to make of that?
In your eyes, I'm sure they have some kind of an agreement, you know. I believe that he's probably trying to curry favor with Trump. In my view, we shouldn't allow Trump to be the savior here. It should be a position that even Democrats say that there should be American investment, but not a ban. But my guess is that that was orchestrated with Trump and the TikTok CEO, that it would go dark for twelve hours and then Trump would reinstate it, and they probably have some agreement already.
How much would from a percentage standpoint, a representative of Conna, how much would you say in terms of support you've received from the left as opposed to the other side of the isle on or right, How would you percentage wise? What kind of percentage would you place on a level of support you've received with your position on this.
You know it's been both. Actually, I think a lot of it on the TikTok position. Of the one point three million signature is probably over half because I'm on the left and the Democrat politician. Over half of it has been the left. But we've also had conservatives, and the reality is there are a lot of young people who have out of the mainstream views, whether it's on foreign policy, whether it is on policies that are more conservative,
and they're saying. You get all these politicians saying we want young people, and then they get involved on these apps and they're taking those apps away. So I you know, I think we're moving in this country not to left right, but more towards people questioning the establishment and wondering are you for people or are you going to just do what this Beltway establishment has done. And frankly, I think for the Democratic Party to get on the right side
of this, we got to be listening to people. It's one of the reasons I enjoy your commentary even when I don't agree with you, because you don't just listen to what the think tank in groups tell you. You know,
one of the biggest myths in Washington. They tell you two hundred groups are for something, and I want to know how many people, because a lot of times it's two hundred groups with one hundred and thirty people, and they just make these organizations up and they're not listening to people on the ground.
You know, I really really appreciate it more than you know you saying that about me a congressman, because here's the thing, I don't pretend to be right all the time, not by a long shot. What I'm saying is the information that is available to us, I look at it and deduce what my opinion should be based on the infam that's given. Somebody like you were significantly more informed. You'll know more than I do.
So will others.
But you know the argument I make to people like that, I say to them, I'm the voter, because most voters aren't, as you know, in tuned with all of the intel and all of the information.
What are you going to say to the voter out there you don't know? Excuse me?
They know enough to decide what they want to vote about and what they want to vote in favor of. And I think that's important that you mentioned that, because I think that's one of the things that so many people miss. They're really ready to come back and talk about what's right or wrong, as opposed to looking at the information that's disseminated and understanding. People are basing their feelings, their emotions, their passions based off of the intel that has been presented to them.
So I think it's important to say that.
Having said that, there are different versions of TikTok in other countries. Could you explain why that is and whether or not that is a concern you may have.
Well, look, this is one of the reasons other countries, like in the era, there's a band TikTok because they felt that TikTok was going to propagate at false information or propaganda a couple of things. One, I actually think the free speech tradition in America is very strong, and they're multiple apps, and we can educate young people and our citizens to have common sense. I wouldn't und undersell yourself, Steven.
I mean, you may not have all the details, but you've got common sense and you have an independent opinion. Like I don't know, a lot of times I see people on TV, I can tell you exactly what they're going to say. I could finish their sentences. In your case, I don't know, is he going to be for the democratic position? Is he going to agree sometimes with the independent Republican position? Because it's common sense, that's what most
people are. And I think what we need to focus in this country on is making sure in high school and junior high school kids have the ability to think for themselves and then be on multiple platforms instead of being so hyper concerned about where they're going to get their information, got it.
Should the fact that that TikTok is banned in mainland China be of concern.
Because it clearly is.
I mean, I don't want to accuse you of not being concerned about it, but certainly it doesn't supersede whether you feel.
Are you concerned about that at all?
Well, I'm concerned about China in general banning, not just TikTok. But why do they ban X? I mean, I think Elon Musk had a reasonable point that if we're going to allow TikTok, you should be allowing X, you should be allowing Instagram. But look, China is not the United States of America. I mean, the reason everyone around the world wants to come to the United States of America is because we're a free country, because you can have
differences of opinion. I mean, yeah, China has created a huge manufacturing base, They've created a trillion dollar export economy. But you can't have an opinion there. You can't criticize gg ping, you can't go run for office, you can't be a commentator with a podcast. I don't want to live in that society. So is China playing fear No? But Does that mean that as should model ourselves over China. Absolutely not. We're a better organized society.
You've led legislation right to keep the app. Where do you go from here? Because it was canceled today. Now it's back up, but we don't know how long. What do you think is next?
Well, Rand Poll and I have legislation to try to repeal the legislation that calls for a band of TikTok and have something more common sense that says protect Americans data with a data privacy law, protect American social media from foreign interference by the Chinese Counties Party or other adversaries. But if that legislation doesn't pass, and it's an uphill battle to get enough House and Senate members, I'm going to work with Michael Waltz, who's President Trump's National security advisor.
He and I were colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee in Congress, and to work with him to see how do we have a resolution to this so that you don't have this drama happening every ninety days, but that we get TikTok operational compliant, assuring the people that their data is going to be safe.
Representative of Rocana, Representative Congressman from the seventeenth District of California. It's been a non and a privilege to have you on today, sir, Thank you so much.
You take care, Maia honor.
Thank you for having me and talking about this.
Yes, sir, you heard what he had to say.
It's a lot to think about, and especially taking into account what he explained and what Roland Martin pointed out, and what we've seen is the visuals alone. We need to keep our eyes on what exactly is going to happen with the TikTok. Yes has been restored, but for how long, what legislation, if any, will be passed, Not that the Republicans have control of the House and the
Senate and the White House. And then in the aftermath of all of that, if it ultimately is confiscated from the hands of some Chinese entity and it's placed in the hands of someone in America or businesses in America, how beholden will those businesses be to Donald Trump? And how will the nation narratives be influenced now and for years to come. You can call it whatever you want, They can call it fascism or whatever the case may be.
Hell in the end, we don't know. They might be right, but all it would mean if you're a Democrat, if you're a Democratic representative, if you're a member of that side of the aisle, all it would mean is that you did it, not.
The American people.
Had you taken care of us the way you were supposed to, by making sure the right things were important to the constituency, it would not have come to this. It's on y'all, not us, Not people like me who voted for you, and now people like Donald Trump supporters who voted against you and voted for him. You did this. He was done in twenty twenty one. You resurrected him.
Live with that.
We know we have to, but we damn sure don't have to listen to you tell us, especially when you're the ones that fall in the end.