WASHINGTON – President Trump on Wednesday downplayed concerns about the Chinese government using TikTok to spy on Americans, saying the Chinese government will monitor “young people watching crazy videos.”
In his first interview since taking power, Trump, 78, said he was aware of the security concerns about the platform, which has an estimated 170 million U.S. users, but thought they were overblown.
“Those who say they know say this is a Chinese communist spy app,” Fox News host Sean Hannity said during the second day of President Trump's second term in the Oval Office. He spoke to President Trump in the room.
“I know. But you can say that about anything made in China,” President Trump responded.
“Look, most of my phones are made in China. There are a lot of them made in China. So why don't they mention it?”
President Trump said there is a “warm spot” on TikTok because of its improved performance among younger voters, noting that the network is primarily used for funny videos.
“But the interesting thing about Tiktok is that it caters to a lot of young people. So is it really that important for China to monitor young people and young kids who watch crazy videos?” Trump he said.
“They make phones, they make computers, they make a lot of other things. Isn't that a bigger threat?”
President Trump halted implementation of the Congress-approved ban on TikTok on his first day in office Monday, extending the ban for 75 days.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew joined other major tech companies in attending President Trump's inauguration on Monday.
The newly sworn-in president said he wants Chinese owner ByteDance to sell 50% of its stake to a U.S. partner.
“People want to buy it,” President Trump told Hannity.
Congress overwhelmingly voted last year to ban TikTok unless the Chinese company sells it.
The bill passed the Senate with a 79-18 vote and the House of Representatives with a 360-58 vote and was signed by then-President Joe Biden, but the decision to enforce the ban, which was scheduled to go into effect, was ultimately up to President Trump. It was done. The last day of his term.
Trump has previously been skeptical of TikTok. 2020 Executive Order “Data collection could give the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans' personal and proprietary information, potentially allowing China to track the location of federal employees and contractors and use it for blackmail purposes,” the report said. “It could enable the creation of personal information documents and corporate espionage.”
He later spoke out against the ban on TikTok, saying it would give Facebook more power to censor political speech.
“There are a lot of good and bad things about TikTok. But what I don't like is that Facebook could be big without TikTok and I think Facebook, along with a lot of media, is the enemy of the people. .” President Trump saidwas banned from posting on Mark Zuckerberg's network in 2021.
