Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined The Brian Kilmeade Show to discuss what’s being widely referred to as the “Senate TikTok Bill,” and why the legislation, called the RESTRICT Act, is actually not a TikTok bill at all. Sen. Rubio, who serves as the Vice Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, argues that while the White House is throwing its support behind the bipartisan bill proposed by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), it only gives the illusion of taking action without actually taking any action. Rubio also points out that TikTok, owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, must follow the National Intelligence Law of China, making Chinese companies legally responsible for providing access to the Chinese government and therefore to the Chinese Communist Party. Meaning your photos, videos, contacts, locations, etc. can be sent back to the Chinese government and used “in a time of conflict, or to divide our country, or to drive narratives that are pro-China and anti-American, or to interfere in our elections.” While Rubio believes Sen. Warner has the right intentions, he says his bill will ultimately allow the number of people on Tik Tok to grow, making the problem go on longer and become harder to fix: “As it is written right now, it will not ban TikTok and it will probably make it impossible to ever ban TikTok.” Sen. Rubio has proposed another bipartisan bill that he says will actually ban the app: “The only bill that has bipartisan support in the House and in the Senate is my bill with Angus King (I-ME) here in the Senate that straight out bans TikTok and says companies that are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party cannot run social media apps in America that collect on our data and use it to shape public opinion against our country here in America, convince young people that their country’s an evil country and that China’s right and worse, collect all your data and use it.”
