Pete Ricketts: “Reserving the right to object. The Chinese Communist Party is our chief foreign adversary in the world and the only…”

“Reserving the right to object. The Chinese Communist Party is our chief foreign adversary in the world and the only external existential threat to our Nation. They threaten our freedom, our prosperity, our security, and our very way of life. When I was Governor of Nebraska, I was the first Governor to ban TikTok on State devices because of the threat it posed. Why did I do that? Well, because Xi Jinping said that he wants to replace us as the world leader. Dictators tend to say what they are going to do and try and do it. We should take him seriously. TikTok is one of the ways that he is trying to do it, trying to undermine what we do around the world. The Chinese Communist Party wants to replace us; TikTok is one of the ways they are trying to influence our downfall. As many as 150 million Americans use TikTok. Fifty-two percent of them say they regularly get news through TikTok, and we know that the CCP uses TikTok to slant the news. This is part of their propaganda. Data shows, for example, my esteemed colleague from Arkansas referenced it, the anti-Semitism on TikTok. If you go back and look, you can see 50 times the posts on pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian content, 50 times the views, despite the fact that overwhelmingly Americans support Israel--the polling shows it--and that is just one of the issues that they get involved with. We wouldn't allow any foreign adversary, TV stations, radio stations, or newspapers to reach 150 million Americans.…”