On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) reacted to President Donald Trump arguing that the espionage threat from TikTok is overblown because most users are young, by stating that “it’s designed to be a spy machine, and it’s not just kids.” “And the ability to engage in real-time espionage is a very dangerous thing” and there’s also a dangerous propaganda side to TikTok.
Host Larry Kudlow asked, “I always assumed, as I think you’re inferring, that China was using TikTok as, essentially, a spy machine, pulling together all this personal information on over 100 million Americans, maybe 150, 170 million Americans. But Mr. Trump raised an interesting point. In his press conference last night in the Oval, while he’s signing away executive orders on everything under the sun, he’s saying, well, how much information or who cares about the private information of a bunch of teenagers and Gen Xers? In fact, the more information of that crowd you know, it could be the scariest thing you’ve ever read about. I never really quite thought of it that way. He’s thinking out of the box as he — are we overestimating the spy-ness of it and underestimating the Gen X-ness communications’, or is it really, in your judgment — and I rely on your judgment on these kinds of things 100% — is it your judgment that it is a spy machine and we have to do something about it?”
Cruz responded, “Look, I think it’s designed to be a spy machine, and it’s not just kids. 170 million U.S. users, that’s half the population of America. And the ability to engage in real-time espionage is a very dangerous thing to add — to hand to and allow our most significant geopolitical adversary to have. I also think the propaganda aspect is serious. They push garbage to our kids. I’ve talked about this at length on my podcast, ‘Verdict with Ted Cruz’, how they use TikTok to push to young people substance abuse, self-harm, suicidal ideation. They push anti-capitalist messaging. They push anti-American messaging. They push anti-Israel and antisemitic content. And it is, very much, I think, an information operation directed at weakening America, and in particular, targeting young people. And that’s why you see such a bipartisan consensus in Congress to say we can’t allow Communist China to have this power over the American people.”
Earlier, he stated that eliminating Chinese “propaganda and espionage” is “what I hope and believe is President Trump’s objective here as well.”
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