Tom Cotton: “Reserving the right to object, which I most certainly do, TikTok isn't just another social media platform, TikTok is a…”

“Reserving the right to object, which I most certainly do, TikTok isn't just another social media platform, TikTok is a Chinese communist spy app that addicts our kids, harvests their data, targets them with harmful and manipulative content, and spreads communist propaganda. Congress recognized the unique dangers of TikTok when we voted on a massive bipartisan basis last April to give its Chinese communist- influenced parent company ByteDance 270 days to sell TikTok to an American buyer or to be shut down in America. That deadline is Sunday. What is more, ByteDance and TikTok had plenty of additional warning for years about the possibility of such action, long before Congress set this firm Sunday deadline. The Trump administration, in 2020, attempted to shut down TikTok. So there was no rush as the Senator from Massachusetts asserted. We didn't pull the rug out from under TikTok, and we didn't ban it. Instead, Congress simply demanded that the app could no longer be owned and controlled by our Nation's worst enemy, communist China. In other words, TikTok's owners had plenty of time to find a buyer, and there were plenty of willing buyers as well. Instead, TikTok whined, lied, complained, sued, and lobbied. Oh, how they lobbied. One notable lobbyist told me that he was offered $100,000 a month-- $100,000 a month--to represent TikTok, but he refused because TikTok is a sewer of vile anti-Semitism. Good for him.…”