We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Kashinsky,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR l
s T, make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of
course to the premium version of the Federalist dot com as well. Speaking of
the Federalist dot com, I'm joined today by Nathan Lemur. Nathan is the
CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies. You can follow him on Twitter at Nathan Lemur
DC. He has an article about what we're going to be talking about today
up on the Federalist dot com. Right now, Before I bring Nathan in,
I just want to say, of course, I'm also joined by a
co pilot today, none other than Christopher Bedford, a contributor at the Federalist.
Chris, how are you doing today? I'm excellent? How are you,
Emily? I'm great? Chris set up this conversation. So Nathan,
first of all, welcome to Federalist Radio Hour, and thank you so much
for joining us on a very busy week. Yeah, indeed, thanks for
having me a longtime listener first time caller. I haven't heard that in a
while, Nathan, So we wanted to talk to you about TikTok. That's
what your article on the Federalist is about right now, and we're basically thinking,
you know, we're recording this on Tuesday morning. The CEO of TikTok
is about to testify, so things will change as the day progresses, but
that doesn't matter because we know the basics of the situation and they will endure.
So could you tell us, just Nathan, about the current bill that
has provoked the most recent wave of debate, because it feels to a lot
of people like it came out of absolutely nowhere, Like there was this total
lull in what was happen happening with TikTok, and then suddenly it exploded because
this bill passed through committee. So basically what's going on right now? Yeah,
So for several months there have been serious conversations in both the House and
the Senate about what to do about TikTok. A number of different legislative proposals.
Many have been based off of President Trump's original concept of forcing a divestiture
of TikTok back into twenty twenty and then this has been just ongoing and a
lot of people are trying to figure out how to do this. So two
weeks ago there was a classified briefing that triggered represented Polone, a Democrat in
the Energy e Commerce Committee, and represented Mike Gallagher, a Republican who runs
the CCP Select Committee. It's really kind of narrowed down and hammer out this
legislative proposal, which is not really aptly titled, but it's called the Protecting
Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which what it would do is it
would force the divestiture of TikTok or similar apps that are owned by the CCP.
TikTok is has a parent company known as byte Dance, which is controlled
by the CCP and base in China. And this bill really is a narrow
approach to basically, you know, get rid of the cancer that is the
CCP's ability to to spy out Americans while also allowing Americans to enjoy the TikTok
app. So if TikTok does not it does divest. If Byte Dance does
divest within one hundred and eighty days of the passage of the law, TikTok
could continue, but if they don't divest, then that's where the legislation would
kick in. TikTok over the past couple months been able to fight any of
the tech. With Trumps out of office for three years, he had been
big on this, and then Republicans and Democrats combined, we're not really able
to push the fight on anti trust and then suddenly it's just kind of lasting
back in. Is that simply a national security aspect that pushed us back through
Congress? I think that's a really fair point. The fact there's a lot
of conversation around privacy or antitrust or Section two thirty, a lot of time
focused on the content of platforms and the focus of what's going on from the
user experience. This is actually about the conduct of the entity, specifically how
they are beholden to a foreign own power as opposed to other companies which honestly
do not have the same requirements to hand over data to China or send that
information to the CCP. And so one of the things that's been happening recently
is there's been efforts to look at privacy and anti trust in Section two thirty,
but a lot of them have been held up because people in most sides
of the aisle feel that TikTok should we address first, and so looking at
TikTok, which I think is a separate issue from larger big tech concerns,
kind of allows us to hit that lower fruit and then look at these larger
kind of your questions about the holistic future of the Internet. It's hard to
keep some of the TikTok bills and plans, like different plans straight, because
there was one particular bill that was just atrociously bad, sort of like big
power grab from the national security state, it seemed like, at least based
on the senators who are involved in introducing it. So, Nathan, could
you walk ins through like the various attempts like what has been tried when it
comes to regulating TikTok, and how they sort of compare and contrast and whether
this particular solution, in your opinion, is a good one, because they
know a lot of people are concerned about that too. There are a lot
of people in the sort of right now, at least on the right.
It seems like people are going into the anti anti TikTok camp, but they're
like, I don't like TikTok, I just also don't like the solution,
and just what are the sort of pros and cons of the different approaches that
have been tried. Yeah, So the main one that got a lot of
the ten was within the past few years was a bill called the Restrict Act.
This is a bill introduced by a Senator Warner and Senator Thun bipartisan,
but to your point, it really did expand overarching kind of powers of the
administration in a way that honestly went far beyond TikTok and far beyond kind of
the question at hand about their relationships with CCP, and could allow the government
to kind of use these powers in ways that I don't think would be helpful
for our economy and helpful for actually security as well or the free expression of
Americans. This is much more tailored in a way that specifically looks at the
conduct of these companies, specifically TikTok, and how they are being uniquely used
by the People's Republic of China in a way that is really detrimental to the
US. And so because that tailored approach, because it's limited in its scope
and authorities, and honestly the definitions are really thought out that way focus on
foreign owned, not foreign owned, but foreign adversary owned. So that just
applies to four nations. So if you are a tech company that is run
at the behest of China, Iran, North Korea, or Russia, you're
going to get caught up in this type of this type of framework. But
if you're Spotify, which is based in Sweden, or if you're Chrysler which
has foreign entity, or Firestone or ABM Bev, you know you're not going
to be caught up in the same dragnet. And I think that's the that
that that that tailored approach allows this, I think to get around some concerns
that people may have and actually help it strengthen its case in the courts and
also the court of public companion. In Capitol Hill, you've got some Senators
that are pushing back against the targeted aspect of that of the House bill.
You've got Dan Well, who's a share shairwoman of the Senate Commerce who's kind
of got her own version of a bill a target tiktab or TikTok. You've
got Republican Young coming out and saying he doesn't like that it's so targeted at
TikTok and one wants to have something that's broader. Why is the House bill
the best of these? And if so, why, Yeah, for you
answer that, I think we all just need to pause and take a moment
to appreciate that. Christopher Bedford just referred to TikTok as tic tac. I
heard it. I heard it. That was pretty good. Yeah, I'm
a boomer. He's on his iPad pro talking about the damn tick tack.
Embrace it, Chris, you know it comes for us all. You know.
A couple of thoughts. One is I think Senator Cantwell's bill is written
in a way that specifically looks at activities. But you know, the problem
is that TikTok has shown now I have Tiktak in my head. Geez,
Chris, thank you. TikTok has shown that they will, you know,
basically metamorphosize as they as they can to try to like, you know,
fit into any situation. So like whether it's Project Texas, which they claimed
would keep data from China which proved to be false, actually was through Project
Texas that they were able to spy on American journalists and and and catch key
strokes of American individuals and all sorts of data, So it didn't really protect
the American data from the Chinese. So if it was first off that point,
But then second point is this has real momentum. This bill compared to
can't well as approach. And so I think that that that that's something that's
worth noting to your point about the Bill of a tainder question. So the
question is like whether because it names TikTok, would that be a problem and
and and the fact is that like as written, this fits into other previously
written language that that would allow the US to to to specifically name an entity
that is actually breaking our laws. The Bill of Attainder uh does not not
does not preclude, you know, prohibitions on government agencies regarding to purchasing telecom
equipment. For example, we banned Huawei ZT and China Telecom just a few
years ago naming those entities, and they were still allowed under the court.
So you know, a recent district court held that wah wahweih might maybe specify
in the law. Congress's actions burdening Huawei were lawful because it was not denying
Huawei a trial for past offenses. So the bill attainder question is about previous
past offenses and their ability to kind of litigate that. But this targeted approach
actually would allow of that process to proceed and should hold up in the courts
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sort of Is there a criticism that basically one of the only companies that would
be in a position to take TikTok over would be Facebook or another huge tech
giant that has many problems of his own. Is it possible that there's cronyism
behind the scenes of this, or is this you know, maybe this is
the only approach that makes any sense or is possible at all. I think
the concern about Facebook being the number one competitor is an earnest one. I
think it fits into an overall conversation that many are having about anti competition concerns
in the tech space and whether there's one or two or three large players who
are kind of dictating the terms of the conversation. And also, I think
that's actually why a lot of people were excited about the concept of TikTok,
because it was an alternative to Instagram, it was an alternative to YouTube shorts.
I understand that thinking however, TikTok can exist apart from ByteDance. And
the other point is that there are some other players in this space who could
participate in the conversation in a way that you know, buying up TikTok if
it was allowed to be divested by the CCP. That's the big question with
the CCP, and allow it to divest. But if they did, you
know, there's entities like Spotify, There's entities like Elon Musk who have been
interested in this activision. Microsoft has showed an interest in this, so,
like you know, I think there's reasons to wonder about what the future of
competition could look like. But also I think this creates an opportunity for new
entrants into the market place that could actually make it even a more robust area
of competition. One more point on that I would say is if you have
a Chinese owned entity, I'm not sure how large you could actually get in
the US market share. The reality is, I think there's going to be
a cap whether it's TEAMU trying to compete with Amazon or whether it's TikTok trying
to compete with other American entities. At some point there's going to be further
in for their scrutiny about what is going on between this entity in the Chinese
government, And so in some ways, I think actually getting away from TikTok,
getting TikTok away from bytdance would actually allow it to be more competitive going
into the future. Why can't the government use existing statutes to kind of plays
this. There are pretty strict rules with the FCC would step in on foreign
ownership of newspapers cable that we need in existing existing structures. Yeah, I
think that's I think that's a fair question. So I'll just put it back
with the FCC whenever they banned Huawei, you know, we banned Whahwei.
But then also we had Congress work on rip and replace. So basically,
Huawei are our telecommunications networks that were owned by the Chinese government and was a
big competitor in telecom space, and the FCC went after it, and when
they did so, Congress also stepped in and established a program called the Rip
and Replaced program that basically said, if you you know, ripped out this
Whiawei infrastructure, We're going to replace it. I think there needs to be
a component of Congress involved in this. This is not a federal agency power
graph. This is something that the American people need to be part of,
part of that conversation. It's not sufficient. I don't think through just the
cefists or through commerce theot to to take this step, but to actually involve
Congress to also establish a pattern looking at potential, you know, new social
media entities or new ways in which foreign adversaries could could affect our, whether
it's our the integrity of our data, or whether it's uh, you know,
propaganda like TikTok has owned in the past couple of years. Well,
that's a good opportunity actually to sort of just take a step back and go
to the thirty thousand foot view, because maybe take thirty thousand steps back because
we haven't quite you're sort of taking for granted here because we cover TikTok on
this podcast all the time, and Nathan, you work on this issue so
closely that TikTok is obviously a really bad thing, and it is. It's
really bad in a number of different ways. But right now it's also sort
of like Pravda owning NBC News in nineteen seventy the sort of national security implications
of TikTok. The situation there is unique. There really is no precedent for
what's happening with it. But there's so much ground to cover when it comes
to why TikTok is bad. We learn more from different reporting and from children's
experiences, people's experiences all of the time. A lot of people saw what
was happening after October seventh on TikTok, and that sort of was an eye
open air, an eye opener for many parents and educators. So, Nathan,
what's your sort of description of the many evils of TikTok? You know,
how do you explain why this product is so bad that actually Congress needs
to take steps to actively have it divested, have have it divested from the
CCP byte Dance and the Beijing based operation. Yeah, it's it's a fair
question to be like, hey, what are the facts, what what's what's
what's going on here? And I think there's a litany of examples of ways
that uh TikTok has shown that it's uniquely bad specifically, and it's in its
ability to be used as a as a weapon of espionage against the United States
and it's and its citizens. I would start out with the fact that every
step of the way, TikTok has been less than forthcoming to Congress or the
US government about questions relating to what they do with their data. For example,
they once testified that no, they would never send data to China,
and then it becomes clear through whistleblowers reporting and through various great reporting by some
good journalists that no, indeed they are sharing data back to China. The
other question is like how TikTok data has been used to catch up Hong Kong
protesters in ways that were really problematic. As the other example I could use
earlier is they were literally spying on American journalists through TikTok, looking at geolocation
data, looking at ways in which they were using the app to use their
keystrokes and other data to basically give a picture of where who these reporters were
talking to. So there was a forest reporter I believe who is working with
a whistleblower from TikTok, and they used this geo location data to track that
journalist so that they could, you know, try to punish them or try
to keep them away from the whistle blower. You know, that's just the
type of power that they have that should not be in the hands of a
foreign adversary. There's other examples of a way that they can use your voice
or your of facial recognition in a way that stored and could be used by
the Chinese government down the road. We also have a recent history, recent
revelations from od and I, the Office the Director of National Intelligence, of
unique ways in which TikTok was trying to spread direct misinformation relating to the election.
Now, we've heard a lot about election misinformation over the past several years,
one way or the other, but this is a whole new threat,
a direct way in which China is trying to affect our elections and in a
way that it's unclear whether it would be towards one side or of the isle
or other. And if we're looking at twenty twenty two, twenty twenty four,
and twenty twenty six going forward, we need to do, you know,
bipartisan measures to mitigate those concerns, and you know, the way of
mobilizing young Americans through TikTok is I think pretty concerned. We saw last week
TikTok literally sent a push notification to all of it's one hundred and seventy million
users that they couldn't use the app until they called their member of Congress.
To opt out of that push notification was very, very difficult. Capitol Hill
was flooded, flooded with thousands of phone calls from young people who seem to
be depressed and have mental issues. There's a number of reporting both from Spectator
Politico Onnaxios that many of these callers threatened self harm and threaten assassination of their
representatives if they banned TikTok and just spoke to sort of the hyperbole and the
tantrums that these activists were having and you can't help but think where these individuals
polluted, their minds polluted by the propaganda they're seeing through the algorithms of TikTok.
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feel like it's been overlooked. And I understand that sometimes when you have to
move Congress, there are certain arguments that will ring stronger Congress and national security
argument often seems to ring a little louder. But the Chinese real I think
one of the real problems with TikTok because the Chinese have a massive cultural weapon
that targets American youth, feeds the sloping garbage, sprinkles in propaganda, addicts
them, and can be used to activate them when needed. And you know
that's why you said you've seen TikTok be banned in other countries that recognize China's
role. I mean, where does that play in? Where does understanding that
and and if you can give us all a background in other countries' actions against
TikTok and their own in their own domestics. Yeah, so, first off,
it is illegal for for federal employees to be using TikTok on their government
phones. This is a big step taken over the past couple of years,
UH that that is to basically recognize that, you know, UH government employees
information is sensitive and could be far more vulnerable on government phones and obviously with
other data on those phones could even be more problematic. We've also seen different
states like Montana ass a ban on TikTok and the states that's currently being fought
in the courts right now, but also kind of speaks to the fact that
there are states who really want to take action on this and represent their people
and engaging in this conversation. Europe Europe is actually also has a ban on
federal UH devices being used with TikTok, and they are also considering their own
version of a divestit or proposal that that that honestly could in some ways that
look like ours. It could look a little different because you know, the
Europeans do things a little differently over there. But that's currently a conversation of
note, I would also point out that like the rest of the Europe stronger
on China than America, that's not great. They're usually kind of kind of
weak about cutting off foreign adversaries when there's an economic benefit to them. To
be fair, I would actually say that Europe has actually changed their approach to
being far more hawkish on China because of the leadership of President Trump and his
administration. And I'm not just saying that, uh just just just just for
political points, but the reality is that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a
former SEC chairman a GPI, my former boss, they worked really close to
with the administration to make it clear to the Europeans that like their internet infrastructure
should not be infested with Chinese products. In fact, Europe has actually taken
steps to unwind their relationships with Huawei and ZT and China Telecom, mainly because
of what we were doing four or five years ago. Explained to them that
this is a problem. And you know, I got to actually go over
to Europe and be part of those conversations and be part of those efforts to
help mitigate the threats of China, Chinese tech and so it's a growing concern.
It's also one that more people across the world are very much aware of.
In fact, if you look at you know, Australia and other people
other entities in the Southern Pacific, they're also concerned about TikTok, and not
just TikTok, but other examples of Chinese vulnerable technology right right, And TikTok
is understandably freaking out about this. Nathan, can you talk to us a
little because so again, the CEO of TikTok is about to testify again today,
so by the time this goes up, that may have already started.
We've seen him testify before and it's been bad. I mean, I think
it's been bad because the bottom line is, Nathan, and as you've pointed
out, there is no way to divest from the CCP, there is no
way for byte Dance unless it fully gets rid of TikTok. There's no way
because through Chinese law, the government will always have access to TikTok data.
And by the way, that's the point, so there's absolutely no workarounds so
they can spend literal billions on Project Texas. It does not make a difference.
It's a public relations campaign, and you know, it's there's some things
that it's like, it's better than the alternative. If it's Project Texas,
I guess it's more hoops that the CCP has to jump through. But you
know, TikTok has, like many or I'm sorry I should say Byte Dance,
Byte Dance has, like many Chinese companies, an active CCP Chinese Communist
Party group in its halls. In the company, there's a basically there's a
Byte Dance Communist Party. Uh, what's the branch? I guess that's probably
the chapter however you want to put it not uncommon if you're in China,
but there are people who work for Chinese media. Forbes has reported this who
are also literally working in the Bye Dance headquarters. So you can Project Texas
all you want, but the problem still remains. But how is TikTok Do
you expect Nathan this time around? Now that the threat feels as serious as
it ever has, how are they responding to all of this? Yeah,
so it's a full court press, and I don't know either the CEO is
testifying or just on the hill doing meetings with with with offices trying to get
meetings to try to like, you know, make his case, but you
know, we can double check that. But yeah, he's on the hill
today, and he also like not just him, but like a lot of
his lobbyist, paid lobbyists are on the hill. His top lobbyist, Michael
Beckerman, was a number of radio hits or interview hits over the past couple
of days. In fact, he didn't apologize for the young activists who called
threatening self arm. In fact, he actually thought it was problematic that members
of Congress who are upsets that these people work quote unquote exercising their first amendments.
So like it's okay for those kids to call in and threaten suicide,
but it's not okay for members of Congress to be turned off by that type
of behavior or to recommend that those individuals called nine to eight the suicide hotline,
which is what they should be doing instead of calling Congress. But you
know, the fact is that they have a whole you know, team of
lobbyists, both on the left and the right, trying to get meetings on
the Hill. And I think to your point also about Project Texas, something
I get kind of fed up with is is sure it looks like it's an
effort to protect your data, but honestly, it's a front. It's no
different than the Sopranos setting up a trash company to cover their misdeeds. Let's
just be real here, Project Texas is Windo addressing to protect them from further
scrutiny. It's not actually about protecting data. And the reporting shows that and
more. If TikTok and byt aancer is more honest with the American people in
the public, they would also know that too. So, you know,
I just you know, I just want to point out that I have we'll
a consternation with that definition. But also, to be fair, it's not
just people on TikTok's payroll. It's people who are you know, by proxy
on TikTok's payroll or who directly benefit from TikTok, who are going on their
own in a way that advocating for this particular position in favor of TikTok that
I just think is disingenuous and really honestly is about enriching certain individuals and not
protecting American American data. How much do you spend from your paycheck in about
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your podcasts. Yes, and that was a really helpful point, Nathan,
Sorry, Chris, just quickly. He's the TikTok CEO is meeting with senators
today. It's not a formal testimony, so thank you for the correction.
No, that's fair. That's fair. So, speaking of people getting rich,
tell us about Jeffrey Yass. He's a right wing as far as I
know, or libertarian, pianthropists, technologists. I one time met him at
a CATO dinner in New York City where he was involved years ago. I
think he's still involved with CATO. Yeah, he didn't get involved whatever project.
I was there to picturemon I remember that, but I heard of him,
and he's popping up everywhere. He seems to be moving Donald Trump.
He seems to be moving parts of the GOP. He seems to be he
seems to be everywhere that that opposition to this bill is yeah, and I
should be clear. I mean, you know, I you know, look,
there there are a lot of great mega donors. There are a lot
of great Republicans who have money who like to use it to engage in different
activities and focus on educational campaigns and public policy initiatives, and so you know,
I don't follow anyone from being engaged in that. In fact, from
what I understand, he's very much involved in the school choice movement and trying
to help young teens and kids, you know, have better educational opportunities,
which I think is actually why I get finance so ironic that he's pushing an
app and has invested thirty three billion dollars into an app that's about, you
know, undermining the sanctity and privacy of young underage children across the country.
You know, the fact is that you know, he has about ten to
fifteen percent ownership stake in the in the large TikTok uh behemoth and is you
know, leveraging his his personal interests to convince a number of individuals, both
high level politicians and third party organizations desperate for cash to take his position on
this. And what kills me about it is that it's not part of some
like holistic worlds view of the Internet. It's not some part of some like
you know, philosophical orientation. A lot of these groups are engaging on a
lot of these people are tough on China. They claim to care about protecting
our data, yet on this specific issue, you know, some organizations like
you know, I'm going to name out Club for Growth, have really taken
a position or honestly, vivek Ramashwami, who took a pretty large check from
him as well, are now like you know, trying to figure out a
way to square the circle, to take the position that TikTok is bad and
should not be banned. But we should look at all these other you know,
examples of Chinese threatning through our nation and we should we should look at
that. So it's been really honestly hard to watch these yas men come together
and kind of take this position. You know, Look, I mean there's
only one. There's only one. Yeah, ask man out there, and
that's George and that's a Cramer. You know, we don't need more of
them running on Capitol Hill. Yeah, so Club for Growth and Trump Vivicara
Maswami. I think Politico reported that Kellyan Conway does work for Club for Growth
and uh does work on this issue for Club for Growth. Is that right,
Nathan. It's that's the way that it worked, that it was through
the club. Yeah, this is this is what's fascinating is that if you
are on the board of an organization, you don't have to disclose your you
know, efforts to try to tell people who work under the organization that you're
a board of what they do. There's no far hour requirement, there's no
nine nineties, there's no you know, financial disclosures we have to give.
If you if you're the godfather running an organization, you just have to flick
your finger. You have to just tell them go ahead and do this,
and they do it. That's that. That's how it can work, especially
whenever you're worth billions upon billions of dollars. One thing I would one thing
I would flag on this is is and I just want to make a separation
about President Trump's comments if I Yeah, that's actually what I was going to
ask about. Okay, great, Maybe do you want to ask the question
because and you can kind of get into kind of what the tweet was and
kind of go from there. Basically, I was just going to say it
was do you think it's specifically Yas that got to Donald Trump or because it
was a change from his position when he was president to how he kind of
explained it in Squawkbox and the Squawkbox interview yesterday and with a social post.
So what kind of explains that? Yeah? I think I think President Trump
and it actually was actually kind of helpful on his Squawkbox interview where he explained
it, like he has major concerns about the whole ecosystem of the Internet.
He's concerned about the competition question that that Chris alluded to earlier, He's concerned
about, you know, other ways to protect American data, et cetera.
And so you know, I see the banning TikTok as a step in the
right direction to fulfill what he wanted long term. I don't know what the
connection between Yass and him is. Honestly, I think the president, the
former president, and hopefully a future president as well. Can Can Can you
know, has a lot a lot on his play and focus on a holistic
vision for kind of restoring you know, American greatness, and so I think
what his leadership on the TikTok issue in general kind of moved it forward.
I think it's fair to have questions about the legislation, and I look forward
to further people kind of educating and sharing what's going on in that space.
Because one of the things he pointed out was that it was a lobbyist who
stopped him last time, and the reality is that we're doing our best to
mitigate those same lobbyists now. And so, you know, I just look
forward to that conversation continuing and and you know, I look forward to seeing
more of the effort to kind of combat China from him going forward. One
point I would say is I am a little frustrated by Kelly and Conway's comment
initiatives recently, you know, being a favorite TikTok. I mean, she
was a spokesperson for Trump when he went after TikTok in twenty twenty. So
to see that flip is very fascinating to basically undermine your previous work. And
then also you know, honestly, we know what happened with her family.
We know what's happened with her family, daughter on TikTok, herself who had
a lot of issues, and it was having bullying issues and being attacked by
Taylor Wrenz on Twitter on TikTok and things like that, and so to see,
you know, those personal issues take a side because you know she wants
to advocate now for TikTok is concerning, and I hope people ask questions.
I know she's doing a political event today about mental health and healthcare, and
I'm kind of curious what she thinks about the mental health implication to TikTok.
Where do you think this goes in the US Senate? What I mean two
weeks ago, I was pretty bearished that you were going to see really any
action from Capitol Hill on big tech, and then there was a sudden flory
of activity. But it looks like, I mean, the Senate is certainly
not aligned. Yet they like to do their own thing. Generally. They
one of their favorite things to do is tell the House to take a hike.
What are you bush bearish? What do you think the future is here.
I mean, I'm more I think there's a higher probability of this passing
than my philadelphy atilities way in the World Series this year, And I'm spending
a lot of money on my gambling on the affillies. So that's how I'm
feeling right now. Look, I mean, we did not expect to get
a vote till the end of March in the House. When I originally talked
to the House leadership, they said, look, maybe by the end of
this work period, before before Easter, we can get this pass. And
the reality is that within days of introducing it they got a unanimous vote out
of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Now, those fifty members can't agree on
anything at all, so the fact that they're able to come together and recognize
that this is a real national security threat and this is the right template to
solve that problem was really really encouraging, so encouraging that, you know,
Majority Leader Steve Scalice is bring it up for a vote on Wednesday, March
thirteenth, depending when this is released, that's tomorrow or today, and it
looks like that's going to pass with overwhelming support. If that passes, man,
I think it's can be hard for the Senate to not take a real
look at it. And you know, we did see some comments from from
Senator Cantwell and Senator Schumer that said, you know, hey, maybe we
should take this slowly and think about it. But we also saw comments from
Senator Blackburn, from Senator johny Ernst, from Senator Tom Cotton, from Senator
Mark or Rubio, from Senator Mark Warner, honestly a leading Democrat in this
issue, saying hey, let's not let's not allow the perfect to be the
enemy the good, and let's actually take a real look at this. And
so I think the real push is going to be getting moderate Democrats in the
Senate to recognize that this is the right path forward. And yes, it
doesn't mean that they have to, you know, take everything the House says
and just pass it as is. That's what Senate's for, That's what the
most deliberate, deliberative body is for, to have this conversation, to look
at it and then move forward from there. And so I do look forward
to the Senate Commerce Committee, which is probably going to be who will next
look at it to see what they do. I know Senator Ted Cruz is
very open in his opposition to TikTok and concern with the way TikTok is polluting
our minds and being a poison pill example of vespionage and the Chinese. So,
you know, I'm excited to see what it looks like in the Senate,
and I'm pretty encouraged if there's a fan dual option out there, put
a little cash on it. Let's go, Well, maybe it's good in
this case that one of Senator Schumer's daughters, I think one works for Meta
and the other works for Amazon. So if Meta wants to take over TikTok,
maybe in this case it's actually this glaring conflict of interest in trek Schumer's
behalf will be helpful. But my last question is just the big, raging
debate. This is not an easy question, but I know what my position
on it is. I don't want to put words in the mouths of people
like Kellyan or jeff Yas, but I think one of the big arguments we're
now hearing is our homegrown technology companies are poisonous us enough. They're you know,
these toxic DARPA cronious projects that are poisoning children's minds and turning Americans on
each other, suppressing speech, engaging in collusion with the government over censorship efforts
they are. You know, a lot of people are saying a bigger threat
to the American people than TikTok is, and that opens up a huge can
of worms, I know, And we don't have to, you know,
exhaust the debate here, but if you want to, just Nathan, give
us your response to that big argument we're hearing more and more of as we're
sort of tying a bow on this conversation, that would be great. Yeah.
First and foremost big tech lobbyists has spent the past five years telling members
of Congress that they can't look at the ecosystem of the Internet until they fix
TikTok. And every time members of Congress bring up legislation, whether it's on
kid privacy, whether it's on competition, or whether it's on Section two thirty,
they will like way their little magic wand and say, hey, it's
TikTok, TikTok, TikTok. And they did that because they assumed members of
Congress would never actually take action on TikTok, and it would be a long
standing talking point that would delay action against big tech. The reality is now
that we have members of Congress on both the left and the right who recognize
TikTok is the problem, have a build before them that can solve this problem
right now and also allow them to seed the ground, if you will,
soften up the ground to allow them to actually work on big tech issues.
So instead of actually using TikTok as a distraction, it is now actually going
to be an example of us moving forward in a way that actually can rein
in the power big tech and also allow for American innovation to push back against
the Chinese. And so I'm actually encouraged that by moving forward on TikTok on
the House and the Senate deliberating on this, it opens up the airways,
It opens up the opportunity for a real conversation about those other entities that now
if TikTok goes away, they no longer have a boogeyman to distract members of
Congress. They now no longer have that opportunity. And also one other point
that I bring up is the unique challenges of TikTok are different than than the
issues of privacy when it comes to other big tech platforms. The issues of
TikTok are unique to to what's going on in the app store and their treatment
of of of app users. It's different than Wi Fi routers like tp link,
which are China you know, uh uh pervert uh you know, sucking
up information to the from from the US and Sanda that China. It's at
all like long standing concerns and issues, and if we start with one,
we can then go down down the pipeline and kind of look at all these
issues that that that that they're popping up. Look like Google Gemini is an
issue, but it's an issue that fits into a conversation about American innovation.
And that's I think different than looking at issues to to push back on the
conduct of Chinese owned entities, you know. And the only thing I'd add
to that, Nathan, is just the possibility of a hot conflict with China
is not remote, or a hot conflict with the country that is allied with
China is not remote. In fact, it is imminent. And if Americans
are sent boots on the ground to die, whether it's in a conflict with
a Chinese ally or with China itself, I think we will be better off
taking our odds with the DARPA companies than with one that is in the pocket
of almost every American under the age of thirty five and allied with the people
who are actively trying to kill Americans. And again, that is not a
remote threat. That's something that's very real, could basically happen at any moment.
Hope to God that it doesn't. But the sort of latent threat of
TikTok with the military context in the background, is truly a terrifying one because
that's bigot in the same way it's sent all of those kids into hysteria calling
House and Senate offices, even if it was just a handful of kids,
as we heard, that is a terrifying thing to have in the hands of
again, just about every American under the age of thirty five, controlling the
flow of political information, controlling the flow of cultural information, and controlling the
flow of for example, voting information. They have a voting project that secks
up your information and tells you where to go to the polls, all of
that. I mean, this is just a vast power. We don't know
how it changes. You made this point earlier, Nathan, down the line,
ten years from now, what China does with that data fifty years from
now what China does with that data, some of which is biometric. I
mean, it's just it's terrifying, chilling stuff. So thank you for coming
here to break it down and for explaining it to all of us. Absolutely,
Thanks again for having me. Really appreciate the opportunity kind of share with
your audience and look forward to answering other questions or seeing how this develops.
Yeah, and again as a reminder, you can go read Nathan's piece up
on The Federalist right now about some of this. Chris Bedford, thank you
so much for setting this up and for joining us. Of course. All
right, everyone, you've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Emily Dashinski, culture editor here at the Federalist. Will be back
soon with more. Until then, be the lovers of freedom. I'm anxious
for the first. You got me right, well, you