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Kellyanne Conway Lobbying Congress to Block Bipartisan TikTok Ban
Kellyanne Conway, the former senior Trump administration aide, is lobbying Congress against banning the controversial app TikTok.
Politico reported that the conservative activist group Club for Growth is paying Conway to advocate on behalf of TikTok. This comes as Congress has moved closer to passing a bill that would force a sale of the controversial app from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Conway told Politico that “alienating 170 million monthly U.S. users” was “draconian” and “ill-advised.”
“If you want to hold China accountable, why are you starting with TikTok, and not the origins of the COVID crisis, the fentanyl crisis, the persecution of Uyghurs, and the vulnerability of Taiwan,” she said.
The former Trump aide has reportedly shared polling she conducted for the Club which found that almost half of independent voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate that votes to ban the app, while a plurality of Republican users, 40 percent, agreed.
The move comes as Club for Growth donor Jeffrey Yass owns a 15 percent stake in ByteDance; the Club for Growth has been vocally against moves to ban TikTok.
Former President Donald Trump had praised Yass as “fantastic” when they were at a Club for Growth retreat.
Although Trump sought to remove TikTok from app stores under his administration, he has taken a different tone, saying that banning TikTok would only empower Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s platform.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump said in a Thursday post on Truth Social.
“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!” the 45th president said.
Now, many Trump allies appear to be more open to Tiktok.
Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has become more open to the app, Tucker Carlson has joined the platform, and Elon Musk, who recently met with Trump, agreed with Trump’s post in defense of TikTok.
Trump’s statement there is correct
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 8, 2024
Trump strategist Alex Bruesewitz said, “I don’t get the rush to do it in the middle of an election year when we are making tremendous progress with Gen-Z.”
“MAGA content does very well on TikTok. And Meta is suppressing MAGA content on both Facebook and Instagram,” Bruesewitz added.
Sean Spicer, the former Trump White House press secretary, said in reaction to the Politico report, “Anyone lobbying for TikTok and helping advance the goals of the Chinese Communist Party should have to file with DoJ as a Foriegn [sic] Agent.”
Anyone lobbying for TikTok and helping advance the goals of the Chinese Communist Party should have to file with DoJ as a Foriegn Agent https://t.co/ytewBdHXnx
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) March 10, 2024
However, Trump’s stance against a TikTok ban serves as a hitch for Congress; the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed a bipartisan bill that would force the sale of TikTok by ByteDance or face a ban in the country. The chamber will vote on the floor, likely on Wednesday. President Joe Biden has signaled he would sign it if it passes both chambers of Congress.
Notably, Facebook, in October 2020, reduced the distribution of a New York Post story that contained information that Joe Biden allegedly met with an adviser on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, while he was vice president, while his son, Hunter, was working as a lobbyist for the company.
Peter Schweizer’s book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans, states that the Chinese government has used TikTok as a “modern day Trojan Horse” to inject propaganda into the American youth.
Schweizer, a Breitbart News senior contributor and president of the Government Accountability Institute, explained in Blood Money how Zeng Huafeng of the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) discussed how to defeat the United States without engaging in direct warfare:
Zeng defines the “cognitive space” as “the area in which feelings, perception, understanding, beliefs, and values exist” and argues that this is where the battle can be won. To that end, he said, Beijing must use “information and popular spiritual and cultural products as weapons to influence people’s psychology, will, attitude, behavior and even change the ideology, values, cultural traditions and social systems.” According to Zeng, these cultural tools, including apps, video games, and films, should be used to “target individuals, groups, countries, and even people around the world.”
Schweizer wrote in Blood Money that Chinese strategists tout TikTok as “information-driven mental warfare” against the United States.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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