Speaker 1: Let me touch on this story involving TikTok, the restoration
Speaker 1: of TikTok, because it was canceled as blacked out. You know,
Speaker 1: it was blacked out in the United States of America
Speaker 1: as you can see there. You know, people crying, kids crying,
Speaker 1: everybody going crazy and stuff like that. And then it
Speaker 1: ultimately was restored, and naturally, now President Donald Trump, then
Speaker 1: President elect Donald Trump, was taking credit for its restoration
Speaker 1: at its celebration and stuff like that. But before I
Speaker 1: get into that, I want to show you Donald Trump
Speaker 1: speaking about TikTok years ago when he was the president,
Speaker 1: and then him speaking about it recently and taking credit
Speaker 1: for its restoration.
Speaker 2: Take a look.
Speaker 3: When I wanted to disable TikTok three years ago, I
Speaker 3: was met with opposition from Rhinos, Democrats and everyone else.
Speaker 3: They actually went to court in an effort to stop me.
Speaker 4: We're looking at TikTok.
Speaker 5: We may be banning TikTok, we may be doing some
Speaker 5: other things. There are a couple of options, but a
Speaker 5: lot of things are happening, so we'll see what happens.
Speaker 5: But we are looking at a lot of alternatives with
Speaker 5: respect to TikTok.
Speaker 3: We gave them until September fifteenth.
Speaker 4: After that they got a close shot. Okay, that's TikTok.
Speaker 4: We're looking at TikTok.
Speaker 5: We're thinking about making a decision.
Speaker 3: We're going to be watching the hearing today very closely
Speaker 3: because there's no quote what the big tech company been doing.
Speaker 6: And as of today, TikTok is back.
Speaker 4: So you know, I did a little TikTok thing. We
Speaker 4: have a guy TikTok. Jack is a young.
Speaker 6: Kid, like twenty one years old, and we hired this
Speaker 6: guy and I went on TikTok and you believe.
Speaker 4: What I'll do to win an election, And we went on.
Speaker 6: TikTok and Republicans have never won the young vote that
Speaker 6: you vote. They win a lot of much, but they
Speaker 6: never won the youth vote. We won the youth vote
Speaker 6: by thirty six points.
Speaker 4: So I like TikTok.
Speaker 1: I like him now he likes it. Amazing what election
Speaker 1: time can do for you. So I's got TikTok because
Speaker 1: the executive for TikTok was at the inauguration. Of course,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos for Amazon was there, Mark Zuckerberg for Meta Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: he was there, and of course Elon Musk for X
Speaker 1: is there.
Speaker 2: Notice how your.
Speaker 1: Now president is insulating himself with individuals who control airwave spend,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Because all the newspapers in the country, all
Speaker 1: the television networks, they don't have the reach these streaming
Speaker 1: platforms have, and you have an opportunity to.
Speaker 2: Control dissemination of messages.
Speaker 1: Though world over everybody don't have ESPN and Fox News
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff. But they got TikTok, they
Speaker 1: got asks, they got meta Facebook, Instagram, that kind of
Speaker 1: thing they got that these most of them do. Anyway,
Speaker 1: before I get to Representative Connor on his show with me,
Speaker 1: I wanted you to see what Roland Martin had to
Speaker 1: say about this whole TikTok brew ha ha and now
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump take a look.
Speaker 7: So let me explain to y'all real quick, the con
Speaker 7: artist Donald Trump. It was Donald Trump who called for
Speaker 7: the band of TikTok. It was Donald Trump who pushed
Speaker 7: Congress to get it done. More Republicans voted to ban
Speaker 7: TikTok than Democrats. Go look at Charlie kirk okay Trump's
Speaker 7: biggest ass kisser. You know what he was saying. He
Speaker 7: was tweets saying, we've got to get rid of TikTok.
Speaker 7: The Chinese government owns it. It's old. We have to
Speaker 7: save TikTok. So Donald Trump is going to try to set.
Speaker 4: Him up as oh I saved.
Speaker 7: TikTok when he was the one who initiated the band.
Speaker 7: Y'all got to stop falling for the okie dope with
Speaker 7: this con artist. Okay, just stop falling for it. And
Speaker 7: so if he tries to force to be sold to
Speaker 7: American he wants it to be sold to his conservative
Speaker 7: folks so they can control TikTok, Twitter, Meta, Instagram and
Speaker 7: all the platforms.
Speaker 2: Don't be conned exactly. Rolandard is absolutely right.
Speaker 1: The only thing Roland Maart did wrong in that video
Speaker 1: was the outfit that he was wearing because the Houston,
Speaker 1: Texas just got sent to him by against City chiefs.
Speaker 1: Although controversially, I might add, because so many people thought
Speaker 1: that that phantom call against uh in favor of Patrick Mahomes,
Speaker 1: against Will Anderson and those boys was ridiculous.
Speaker 2: But the only thing wrong with what Roland Martin, what
Speaker 2: Roland Martin.
Speaker 1: Showed you there was the outfit he was wearing because
Speaker 1: they home in Kansas City Chiefs are NAFC Championship game.
Speaker 1: Yet again, having said all of that, he's not wrong,
Speaker 1: we could see that boo boo to fool because that
Speaker 1: we know exactly what Donald Trump is doing with this regard,
Speaker 1: because he wants TikTok to be purchased, you know, away
Speaker 1: from byte Dance, which is China owned and owned by
Speaker 1: some US cooperation, probably some conservative arm and yet as
Speaker 1: a result, they'd be beholden to him and his messaging.
Speaker 1: And so you have a situation where it'd be again TikTok, Meta, Facebook, Instagram, Acts, etc.
Speaker 1: You know, Amazon with its distribution on because it ain't
Speaker 1: just goods and services they got, they got a streaming
Speaker 1: on itself that is formidable and is growing every single
Speaker 1: day with Jeff Bezos at the helm. Okay, I got
Speaker 1: news for you. Look at who Donald Trump has surrounded
Speaker 1: himself with. He's insulated himself and at any given moment
Speaker 1: as the president of the United States, he's gonna have
Speaker 1: a heavy hand. The Dams saw this, but you still
Speaker 1: messed up because you didn't have a candidate to beat them.
Speaker 1: It's that simple. You did this to yourself. That's just
Speaker 1: the truth. But that's a different subject for another day.
Speaker 1: Staying with TikTok. There is a Democratic representative that's been
Speaker 1: doing good work and has been saying some very productive
Speaker 1: things on this subject for very substantive reasons. He is
Speaker 1: a representative out of the seventeenth District of California. He
Speaker 1: is mister Roe Connor. He is with me right now,
Speaker 1: Representative Connor. How are you so? How's everything going?
Speaker 4: Good? Steven, and thank you for having me on your show.
Speaker 4: I've been a fan for years, so I'm glad to be.
Speaker 1: On the honor and privileges mindset. Before I even get
Speaker 1: into these questions about TikTok, I'm assuming that you, yourself,
Speaker 1: your family, your homes are safe, and everything is okay
Speaker 1: with you out in California. I think it'd be appropriate
Speaker 1: to start there, sir, are how are things?
Speaker 4: I appreciate it. I'm up in the north of the state,
Speaker 4: Silicon Valley, so we've been safe. Unfortunately, some of the
Speaker 4: constituents have family friends in LA which has just been devastated.
Speaker 4: I'm glad we were earlier, and I'm glad your home
Speaker 4: is okay. But I'm sure you know a ton of
Speaker 4: people who just lost their homes devastated. Something people haven't
Speaker 4: been able to move back in. It's just been awful,
Speaker 4: and I hope the country can come together to rebuild
Speaker 4: and forget the politics. And people's lives are instake, their
Speaker 4: homes are at stake. We got to come together on this.
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you, absolutely, and that's something that
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about in the days, the weeks,
Speaker 1: and the months to come.
Speaker 2: Make no mistake about that.
Speaker 1: But one of the other things that have basically rocked
Speaker 1: the foundation of America at least for at least for
Speaker 1: a little bit, was the specter of TikTok being canceled.
Speaker 1: And obviously you've been a preeminent voice on that issue.
Speaker 1: Just to educate my audience, tell the audience about what
Speaker 1: the whole TikTok issue is about and what your position
Speaker 1: on it has been all along.
Speaker 4: There is a concern that TikTok is owned by a
Speaker 4: Chinese Communist Party's affiliate, is some company connected to the
Speaker 4: Chinese Communist Party. Now six of the investors are American,
Speaker 4: But the concern was could our data go to the
Speaker 4: Chinese government or could the Chinese government interfere with the algorithm?
Speaker 4: And what I said is okay, if you have those concerns,
Speaker 4: first of all, show evidence of it. Show evidence that
Speaker 4: it's TikTok doing it and not data brokers or other
Speaker 4: social media And let's pass a law saying it's illegal
Speaker 4: to take any American data and give it to the
Speaker 4: Chinese Communist Party, or pass the law saying the Chinese
Speaker 4: Communist Party shouldn't be interfering on any social media algorithm.
Speaker 4: But instead what the law did is it called for
Speaker 4: banning it. And I'll tell you I talked to some
Speaker 4: of the people in TikTok I and folks think it's
Speaker 4: all song and dance or just sports, it's not. I mean,
Speaker 4: I talked to a mom. Her husband cheated on her.
Speaker 4: She's got four kids, two toddlers, two special needs kids.
Speaker 4: She was broke on one of her friends couches for
Speaker 4: four months, and then she'd started telling her story on TikTok.
Speaker 4: And she makes sixty to seventy grand to take care
Speaker 4: for kids. Someone else is paying rent. And all of
Speaker 4: this was going to get shut down. And so we
Speaker 4: had a one point three million people in forty three
Speaker 4: forty eight hours sign a petition saying keep this up.
Speaker 4: And fortunately, even though it went dark, it's now up.
Speaker 4: And I don't think banning the app.
Speaker 2: Is the solution when people wanted it banned.
Speaker 1: Who exactly were these people number one and number two?
Speaker 1: What was the most profound argument you were concerned was
Speaker 1: being made to indeed ban TikTok.
Speaker 4: Well, a lot of these people were China Hawks. They
Speaker 4: said that we can't have China have any control over
Speaker 4: Americans data. And if I actually thought that our data
Speaker 4: was getting in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 4: through TikTok, and that there was no other way to
Speaker 4: prevent it, i'd before the ban. But there are other solutions.
Speaker 4: The Texas Project, for example, says make sure all the
Speaker 4: data is managed by Oracle, and you can't have any
Speaker 4: of the data leave the United States. If I really
Speaker 4: thought the Chinese Counties Party was doing this algorithm to
Speaker 4: manipulate things, I'd be concerned. That was the concern. But look,
Speaker 4: Steve and I we have a history in this country
Speaker 4: of using national security concerns for government overreach. We've in
Speaker 4: turned all the Japanese with FDR maccarthier, we called everyone
Speaker 4: a communists. I think this was government overreach.
Speaker 2: You know, I've thought about that myself.
Speaker 1: The thing that kind of scared me, what have you
Speaker 1: is when they kept like you called them China hawks.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's an appropriate way to label those folks.
Speaker 1: But when they brought in issues of using these apps,
Speaker 1: these algorithms, etc. To sort of spy on us, to
Speaker 1: indoctrinate our children with certain things. And then you see,
Speaker 1: I have two daughters, and you see how addicted these
Speaker 1: young minds are to TikTok. The part about adults using
Speaker 1: it as a small business essentially to generate revenue for themselves,
Speaker 1: that's entirely different than youngsters using it it being a
Speaker 1: form of education for them, a news outlet for them
Speaker 1: in various situations, many situations, I might add, what about
Speaker 1: those China hawks who made those concerns? How much did
Speaker 1: that move you if at all?
Speaker 4: Well, the young people reaching out moved me a lot.
Speaker 4: I had a lot of messages and nieces who I've
Speaker 4: been in Congress eight years who've never cared about a
Speaker 4: single thing I did, who suddenly started texting me saying,
Speaker 4: please save TikTok. And there's a lot of good uses
Speaker 4: of TikTok, even for young folks, whether they're building community
Speaker 4: of whether they're learning on education. Now social media has harms.
Speaker 4: And I'm not going to deny that some of the
Speaker 4: social media has harmed young people, particularly young girls with
Speaker 4: eating disorder issues or suicidal thoughts. And so fine, let's
Speaker 4: pass out there's a Kids Online Safety Act that says,
Speaker 4: let's create a standard so that any of these apps,
Speaker 4: whether it's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, should not be prolific writing
Speaker 4: things to young folks that are going to cause harm.
Speaker 4: But you can't just ban the app and take away
Speaker 4: a sense of community for folks. And this most of
Speaker 4: the people in Congress. Here's the hypocrisy that I want
Speaker 4: to point out. They voted for the ban, and then
Speaker 4: they go tell their campaign teams go get me the
Speaker 4: most followers on TikTok because that's where the voters are.
Speaker 4: And everyone, every member of Congress, every senator, everyone running
Speaker 4: for president, wanted to grow their following. So there was
Speaker 4: a lot of hypocrisy of the whole thing.
Speaker 2: We sort of had a TikTok, the own of TikTok.
Speaker 1: He was seeing at now President Donald Trump's inauguration.
Speaker 2: What are we to make of that?
Speaker 4: In your eyes, I'm sure they have some kind of
Speaker 4: an agreement, you know. I believe that he's probably trying
Speaker 4: to curry favor with Trump. In my view, we shouldn't
Speaker 4: allow Trump to be the savior here. It should be
Speaker 4: a position that even Democrats say that there should be
Speaker 4: American investment, but not a ban. But my guess is
Speaker 4: that that was orchestrated with Trump and the TikTok CEO,
Speaker 4: that it would go dark for twelve hours and then
Speaker 4: Trump would reinstate it, and they probably have some agreement already.
Speaker 1: How much would from a percentage standpoint, a representative of Conna,
Speaker 1: how much would you say in terms of support you've
Speaker 1: received from the left as opposed to the other side
Speaker 1: of the isle on or right, How would you percentage wise?
Speaker 1: What kind of percentage would you place on a level
Speaker 1: of support you've received with your position on this.
Speaker 4: You know it's been both. Actually, I think a lot
Speaker 4: of it on the TikTok position. Of the one point
Speaker 4: three million signature is probably over half because I'm on
Speaker 4: the left and the Democrat politician. Over half of it
Speaker 4: has been the left. But we've also had conservatives, and
Speaker 4: the reality is there are a lot of young people
Speaker 4: who have out of the mainstream views, whether it's on
Speaker 4: foreign policy, whether it is on policies that are more conservative,
Speaker 4: and they're saying. You get all these politicians saying we
Speaker 4: want young people, and then they get involved on these
Speaker 4: apps and they're taking those apps away. So I you know,
Speaker 4: I think we're moving in this country not to left right,
Speaker 4: but more towards people questioning the establishment and wondering are
Speaker 4: you for people or are you going to just do
Speaker 4: what this Beltway establishment has done. And frankly, I think
Speaker 4: for the Democratic Party to get on the right side
Speaker 4: of this, we got to be listening to people. It's
Speaker 4: one of the reasons I enjoy your commentary even when
Speaker 4: I don't agree with you, because you don't just listen
Speaker 4: to what the think tank in groups tell you. You know,
Speaker 4: one of the biggest myths in Washington. They tell you
Speaker 4: two hundred groups are for something, and I want to
Speaker 4: know how many people, because a lot of times it's
Speaker 4: two hundred groups with one hundred and thirty people, and
Speaker 4: they just make these organizations up and they're not listening
Speaker 4: to people on the ground.
Speaker 1: You know, I really really appreciate it more than you
Speaker 1: know you saying that about me a congressman, because here's
Speaker 1: the thing, I don't pretend to be right all the time,
Speaker 1: not by a long shot. What I'm saying is the
Speaker 1: information that is available to us, I look at it
Speaker 1: and deduce what my opinion should be based on the
Speaker 1: infam that's given. Somebody like you were significantly more informed.
Speaker 1: You'll know more than I do.
Speaker 2: So will others.
Speaker 1: But you know the argument I make to people like that,
Speaker 1: I say to them, I'm the voter, because most voters aren't,
Speaker 1: as you know, in tuned with all of the intel
Speaker 1: and all of the information.
Speaker 2: What are you going to say to the voter out
Speaker 2: there you don't know? Excuse me?
Speaker 1: They know enough to decide what they want to vote
Speaker 1: about and what they want to vote in favor of.
Speaker 1: And I think that's important that you mentioned that, because
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that so many
Speaker 1: people miss. They're really ready to come back and talk
Speaker 1: about what's right or wrong, as opposed to looking at
Speaker 1: the information that's disseminated and understanding. People are basing their feelings,
Speaker 1: their emotions, their passions based off of the intel that
Speaker 1: has been presented to them.
Speaker 2: So I think it's important to say that.
Speaker 1: Having said that, there are different versions of TikTok in
Speaker 1: other countries. Could you explain why that is and whether
Speaker 1: or not that is a concern you may have.
Speaker 4: Well, look, this is one of the reasons other countries,
Speaker 4: like in the era, there's a band TikTok because they
Speaker 4: felt that TikTok was going to propagate at false information
Speaker 4: or propaganda a couple of things. One, I actually think
Speaker 4: the free speech tradition in America is very strong, and
Speaker 4: they're multiple apps, and we can educate young people and
Speaker 4: our citizens to have common sense. I wouldn't und undersell yourself, Steven.
Speaker 4: I mean, you may not have all the details, but
Speaker 4: you've got common sense and you have an independent opinion.
Speaker 4: Like I don't know, a lot of times I see
Speaker 4: people on TV, I can tell you exactly what they're
Speaker 4: going to say. I could finish their sentences. In your case,
Speaker 4: I don't know, is he going to be for the
Speaker 4: democratic position? Is he going to agree sometimes with the
Speaker 4: independent Republican position? Because it's common sense, that's what most
Speaker 4: people are. And I think what we need to focus
Speaker 4: in this country on is making sure in high school
Speaker 4: and junior high school kids have the ability to think
Speaker 4: for themselves and then be on multiple platforms instead of
Speaker 4: being so hyper concerned about where they're going to get
Speaker 4: their information, got it.
Speaker 1: Should the fact that that TikTok is banned in mainland
Speaker 1: China be of concern.
Speaker 2: Because it clearly is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to accuse you of not
Speaker 1: being concerned about it, but certainly it doesn't supersede whether
Speaker 1: you feel.
Speaker 2: Are you concerned about that at all?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm concerned about China in general banning, not just TikTok.
Speaker 4: But why do they ban X? I mean, I think
Speaker 4: Elon Musk had a reasonable point that if we're going
Speaker 4: to allow TikTok, you should be allowing X, you should
Speaker 4: be allowing Instagram. But look, China is not the United
Speaker 4: States of America. I mean, the reason everyone around the
Speaker 4: world wants to come to the United States of America
Speaker 4: is because we're a free country, because you can have
Speaker 4: differences of opinion. I mean, yeah, China has created a
Speaker 4: huge manufacturing base, They've created a trillion dollar export economy.
Speaker 4: But you can't have an opinion there. You can't criticize
Speaker 4: gg ping, you can't go run for office, you can't
Speaker 4: be a commentator with a podcast. I don't want to
Speaker 4: live in that society. So is China playing fear No?
Speaker 4: But Does that mean that as should model ourselves over China.
Speaker 4: Absolutely not. We're a better organized society.
Speaker 1: You've led legislation right to keep the app. Where do
Speaker 1: you go from here? Because it was canceled today. Now
Speaker 1: it's back up, but we don't know how long. What
Speaker 1: do you think is next?
Speaker 4: Well, Rand Poll and I have legislation to try to
Speaker 4: repeal the legislation that calls for a band of TikTok
Speaker 4: and have something more common sense that says protect Americans
Speaker 4: data with a data privacy law, protect American social media
Speaker 4: from foreign interference by the Chinese Counties Party or other adversaries.
Speaker 4: But if that legislation doesn't pass, and it's an uphill
Speaker 4: battle to get enough House and Senate members, I'm going
Speaker 4: to work with Michael Waltz, who's President Trump's National security advisor.
Speaker 4: He and I were colleagues on the House Armed Services
Speaker 4: Committee in Congress, and to work with him to see
Speaker 4: how do we have a resolution to this so that
Speaker 4: you don't have this drama happening every ninety days, but
Speaker 4: that we get TikTok operational compliant, assuring the people that
Speaker 4: their data is going to be safe.
Speaker 1: Representative of Rocana, Representative Congressman from the seventeenth District of California.
Speaker 1: It's been a non and a privilege to have you
Speaker 1: on today, sir, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: You take care, Maia honor.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me and talking about this.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, you heard what he had to say.
Speaker 1: It's a lot to think about, and especially taking into
Speaker 1: account what he explained and what Roland Martin pointed out,
Speaker 1: and what we've seen is the visuals alone. We need
Speaker 1: to keep our eyes on what exactly is going to
Speaker 1: happen with the TikTok. Yes has been restored, but for
Speaker 1: how long, what legislation, if any, will be passed, Not
Speaker 1: that the Republicans have control of the House and the
Speaker 1: Senate and the White House. And then in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of all of that, if it ultimately is confiscated from
Speaker 1: the hands of some Chinese entity and it's placed in
Speaker 1: the hands of someone in America or businesses in America,
Speaker 1: how beholden will those businesses be to Donald Trump? And
Speaker 1: how will the nation narratives be influenced now and for
Speaker 1: years to come. You can call it whatever you want,
Speaker 1: They can call it fascism or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1: Hell in the end, we don't know. They might be right,
Speaker 1: but all it would mean if you're a Democrat, if
Speaker 1: you're a Democratic representative, if you're a member of that
Speaker 1: side of the aisle, all it would mean is that
Speaker 1: you did it, not.
Speaker 2: The American people.
Speaker 1: Had you taken care of us the way you were
Speaker 1: supposed to, by making sure the right things were important
Speaker 1: to the constituency, it would not have come to this.
Speaker 1: It's on y'all, not us, Not people like me who
Speaker 1: voted for you, and now people like Donald Trump supporters
Speaker 1: who voted against you and voted for him. You did this.
Speaker 1: He was done in twenty twenty one. You resurrected him.
Speaker 2: Live with that.
Speaker 1: We know we have to, but we damn sure don't
Speaker 1: have to listen to you tell us, especially when you're
Speaker 1: the ones that fall in the end.