“SEVEN THINGS YOU CAN’T SAY ABOUT CHINA”: Sen. Tom Cotton Breaks Down New Book, Biggest Foreign Threat to the United States

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and author of Seven Things You Can’t Say About China, joined The Guy Benson Show to discuss his brand-new book and some of its most critical revelations–including how China is infiltrating America through lobbying efforts and from inside the United States government. Sen. Cotton discussed how China is preparing for war. He discussed how this war preparation reveals the need for U.S. deterrence efforts against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Guy and Senator Cotton also discussed the return of TikTok to app stores and the push to sever it from CCP control, ongoing negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war, his clash with Trump nominee Elbridge Colby, and why Hamas must not be allowed to control any inch of Israeli territory. Listen to the full interview below.

Listen to the full interview:

Listen to the full podcast:

Read the full (automated) transcript below:

GUY BENSON:  I’m happy to welcome back to the show. Now, United States Senator Tom cotton, Republican from Arkansas. He’s out with a new book, Seven Things You Can’t Say About China. Senator, welcome back to the show.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Hey, Guy, it’s great to be on with you. Thanks for having me.

GUY BENSON: I want to talk about news of the day and politics and all of that. But before we get to any of it, let’s focus on this new book, seven Things You Can’t Say About China. We only have so much time, so I don’t want to run through all seven. I am particularly interested in a few of the points that you make. If you can just maybe give a taste of what your book explains and reports for our audience. One of them is China is preparing for war. If you can get into the details there. And then, perhaps relatedly, another one is China has infiltrated our government. That is a scary claim. I think it’s undeniably true in certain respects. Why don’t we start there when you assert that China, the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated our the U.S. government? What do you mean?

SEN. TOM COTTON: Yeah. Well, first guy, it’s important to note one of the other things I say you can’t say about China and that’s that it’s waging an economic world war, and it has been for several decades against the United States. And the reason that is so important is that the the power and the wealth that China has built up has allowed it to underwrite that rapid military buildup that has preparing for war. It’s also allowed it to infiltrate our society and our government. So, as I say, in the chapter about China infiltrating our government, yes. China uses just traditional spy methods. Think about, you know, what you saw in the Cold War from period pieces like The Americans or spy fiction? But that’s not just history that’s actually happening today in Washington with Chinese spies. But that’s far from the only thing they’re doing. They’re trying to infiltrate our military with old fashioned spies. They’re recruiting veterans to help train their military. They’re launching cyber attacks against our defense industry. That’s one reason why the People’s Liberation Army aircraft looks strange. And like American aircraft, they’re trying to buy land up around sensitive military sites, but they’re also engaged deeply in the Washington Swamp, again, not just to traditional spies, but to trying to influence politicians. You may recall that Bill Clinton’s campaign get almost $3 million and had to return, and criminal cases were brought against Chinese influence agents. China is adept at putting, Chinese spies around politicians. Think about Dianne Feinstein, driver, or Eric Swalwell, supporter, who he later had apparently a romantic relationship with. And also maybe even more pervasive is what I call the new China lobby, people who are working on behalf of Chinese interest and Chinese companies, which are almost always linked back to the Chinese Communist Party. These are former lawmakers of both parties, former aides of leaders in both parties. There’s also people going back in the government. You know, I remember in the Biden administration, you had the general counsel at the CIA and the director of national intelligence. Both had worked as lawyers for Chinese interest at their law firms. And their defense was well, the cases came to us. Well, you know, these liberal law firms for what? You turn down cases depending on tobacco companies or oil and gas companies. But apparently you’re compelled to work on behalf of Chinese communist interests. So. So China has extended its influence to Washington. But it’s not just Washington either. It’s state and local government, because they know that state and local officials can provide influence into Washington, can become a farm team for people to later get elected to national office, and in the meantime, can provide lots of concrete benefits, you know, tax breaks and subsidies and land grants and so forth. When you’re trying to recruit Chinese businesses into America. So at every level, from the city hall all the way to the white House, China is trying to infiltrate and influence our government.

GUY BENSON: And also just the country as well. In terms of surveillance infrastructure in the United States. I know a lot of us talked about the Chinese spy balloon, which was a disturbing incident. It was very brazen on their part, kind of clumsy compared to a lot of the things that they’re engaged in and their subterfuge. But some of the elements of what they’re trying, and it’s not just in the U.S., it’s in other Western countries as well. They want to basically wire their surveillance into our national infrastructure, and that’s beyond on screens through TikTok and things like that. I’m talking about like CCTV, right?

SEN. TOM COTTON: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one good example guy is the fight we had against Wall Wei, the Chinese telecom giant, a few years ago. They are a massive company. They provide handsets like, you know, smart phones. They also provide kind of a backbone for, communications networks. And it just so happens that Wall Wei had sold a bunch of inexpensive devices to rural telephone companies who, just conveniently enough, located throughout the Mountain West and the northern Great Plains, where a lot of our nuclear missile bases and silos are located. And and this is an example of what I mean about how Chinese influence is pervasive. We heard from the owners of many of those companies about how hard it would be to take away devices out of their networks, and that it could be potentially catastrophic losses for them. Now, those people were not witting agents of the Chinese Communist Party. In my experience, almost all of them were great, patriotic Americans who were providing good services to their communities and good high paying jobs for their workers. But they had become dependent unwittingly on Chinese communist influence companies.

GUY BENSON: Yeah, they burrow in, right? They embed themselves. They should try to make it as hard to extract them as possible. And that includes TikTok. I mean, just to go down that path for a second here at Senator, since this book is about China and the threat there, I mean, I see that we have Google and Apple once again restoring TikTok to those app stores. The law that was passed and is the law of the land right now forbids that. I know that there’s this brief grace period where President Trump has basically signed a waiver into existence, but I didn’t realize that superseded the ban on this from our app stores. It just seems like enough people were annoyed enough about TikTok that we’re ignoring the law that we passed.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Yeah, I mean, I think it would have been better let the law go into effect on the day before President Trump took office and leave it. In effect, that would have kept the pressure on TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, the sale and cut ties entirely from China. The whole point of the law is not to ban TikTok in America, it’s to force its sale from a Chinese communist influence company. So I can’t be used by the communist against us.

GUY BENSON: Is that still realistic? Do you think that still might happen?

SEN. TOM COTTON: I think that the president’s goal is to comply with the law as it’s written, during this short period of non enforcement. I think the companies should follow the law because there’s liability they face. Beyond just Department of Justice Enforcement. But all that said, what we wanted all along is not to ban Tik Tok, but to get Tik Tok completely severed from Chinese communist, because I recognize that other social media platforms also can cause harm to Americans. But it’s a horse of a different color when it’s being purposely done by our main adversary. Now I hear people saying that, oh, it’s just, you know, kids, data wouldn’t matter. Well, kids grow up pretty fast. Yeah, of course there are adults on the platform too. But those kids do become adults, and they take jobs and law enforcement and military and intelligence and sensitive industrial posts. I’ve also heard what the you know, the content is mostly harmless and a lot of the content is harmless. You know, cat videos or how to videos about home repair or cooking, and that’s fine. But there’s a lot of content. It’s harmful. And it’s specifically directed at America’s kids to encourage girls to have eating disorders or negative body images to show boys the most obscene kinds of pornography or graphic violence, to encourage drug use, or even glamorized suicide for kids when they express sad or depressive thoughts. Of course, it’s also a tool of Chinese propaganda. That’s why you see the overwhelming amount of anti-Semitic content on TikTok. Unlike anything you see on any other social media app. And finally, you can’t. It’s just like. I mean, you can’t learn anything on TikTok about China, about Tiananmen Square, about Tibet or about Hong Kong and so on and so forth. So it remains a real and genuine danger to America, especially to our kids.

GUY BENSON: It’s information warfare, and it’s sitting in the pockets of millions and millions and millions of Americans right now. And I shudder to think how especially the propaganda side, because the data side can definitely be leveraged down the line for blackmail and all sorts of other things. But propaganda on a mass scale, directly in front of the eyeballs of especially young Americans, the way they could turn that spigot on if and when they choose to. Beyond what they’ve already done, that is what is so highly concerning, which is why this is something we’ve watched so closely. And it leads to that second point I wanted to explore just a little bit from your book. China is preparing for war. That’s a scary thing to hear, right? It’s a giant country, more than a billion people. A very evil ideology, at least at the very top from the regime. When you hear a U.S. senator with lots of insight into intelligence and that sort of thing. Warning that our biggest adversary in the world is preparing for war. I guess the question is for war. Against whom are you talking about? Taiwan? Some sort of expansionist war? Are you talking about a war against us or just girding generally here? What is the warning?

SEN. TOM COTTON: Well, the highest point in the world is over Taiwan. And the People’s Liberation Army has been preparing for decades to invade or blockade, or both Taiwan occupy, occupied and ultimately annex it to the mainland. Now they know, as any sensible person knows, that if Taiwan is left to its own, it can’t defend itself against China indefinitely. It’s an island of about 25 million people. China has about 1.4 billion people. That’s why we’ve always armed Taiwan. It’s why I argue in the book that the only, the only sensible outcome to a potential conflict over Taiwan is not to fight it in the first place, to deter it from happening. But that’s harder now than it once was, because China has undertaken the biggest military buildup in history. It’s, increased their own spending by more than 1,000%. The their military is more than double our size. Their army is more than double our size. One of their shipyards, just one, can produce more ships for their navy than all of our shipyards combined. So there’s no question that China has been preparing for a war over Taiwan, not just or primarily to be able to conquer Taiwan, which they know they could eventually do. It was just fought out one on one, but rather to keep America out of the war and to defeat us if we enter the war. That’s why it’s so important that we build up our military, specifically with the capabilities needed to deter China from going for the jugular in the first place. Because if you had a war of any kind, even if it was inconclusive or stalemate and China didn’t achieve its goals, you’d still have immediate Great Depression around the globe. Stock markets would collapse, life savings would be lost, jobs would be lost, shelves in stores in America would be empty. To say nothing of the thousands of lives that we would lose for our troops, hundreds of aircrafts and ships and so forth. We have to be strong. We have to Taiwan be strong to prevent that war from ever happening.

GUY BENSON: Speaking of a stalemated war and an outcome that I think Beijing will be highly interested to watch. You’ve got Russia and you’ve got Ukraine. And now these very initial conversations and negotiations around how that conflict might come to a close. And I know the Ukrainians seem to be alarmed that at least at the very first stages here, they have not been included in a conversation between the U.S. and Russia. You’ve got Europeans also expressing consternation about that. President Trump has made clear that the Ukrainians, of course, will be part of these conversations. I don’t want to see any sort of outcome imposed upon Ukraine. That’s what the Russians already tried with their unjustified war of aggression. They tried to impose an outcome on Ukraine, basically the taking over of that country. Unfortunately, the Russians have largely failed. But hundreds of thousands of people are dead. Almost everyone would like to see an outcome and peace, but a peace that sustainable for Ukrainian security and sovereignty moving forward. That gives an off ramp to the Russians without rewarding them for what they did. Are you worried about the way this is shaping up. Are you encouraged by the early talks? How should this play out?

SEN. TOM COTTON: Well, I think it’s important to recognize the reality in Ukraine is mess right now is a mess because of Joe Biden. His weakness tempted Putin to invade in the first place. He pussyfoot it around for three years. And it’s clear in retrospect now that his strategy all along was to lose the war, just lose it after the election. And that’s the rally that that we all have to deal with. My understanding is the talks in Riyadh today are about reestablishing channels, with Russia. That’s obviously going to be necessary for any kind of negotiations about a ceasefire. And as you said, that President Trump intends to once we reestablish those channels and maybe establish some contours or parameters to have, Vladimir Zelensky’s representatives sit down as well. And I think what we have to hope for is a durable and lasting truce that prevents or protects what JD Vance said last week in Europe, Ukraine’s sovereign independence and prevents a third Russian invasion of Ukraine. We’ve had the first and the second already on the last two Democratic presidents watches. We don’t want to have a third invasion in the future. So if we can get that kind of durable truce that protects Ukraine’s sovereign independence and that reliably prevents a third invasion, I think right now, given where we are after three years of failed Biden policy, that that might be a good outcome for Ukraine, for the United States, for the, for the world.

GUY BENSON: How much, say, should Ukraine have in what’s a good outcome for them? Because I think one of the concerns is Trump made this promise we’re going to end the war. And if he’s willing to give, let’s say, by Zelensky’s estimation, too many concessions to Putin. He might he might balk at that. And then what right is it too premature to talk about that outcome or that that possibility at least?

SEN. TOM COTTON: No. I mean, President Zelensky said that he has a good relationship with President Trump and he trust President Trump. And I think he’s going to communicate where those red lines are for him, what he thinks is necessary. I think he’s probably realistic about where the war is right now and what Ukraine needs to do to protect itself, protect its future, and prevent a future invasion. So I don’t want to prejudge the negotiations or say what Ukraine should or should not do. You never know what kind of trade offs might be offered by both sides. But I do think that President Zelensky trusts President Trump, or they’ve had a positive relationship for a long time. And that he understands that what President Trump wants is a durable and lasting truce that protects Ukraine’s sovereign independence and prevents a renewal of the fighting or a future invasion.

GUY BENSON: Senator Tom cotton A few other things here. Yesterday marked the five year anniversary of a Washington Post headline attacking you for spreading conspiracy theories about the lab leak out of Wuhan. Of course, you’ve been vindicated on that point many times over. I just am curious, have you ever heard from any of the journalists or public health bureaucrats or anyone else who raked you over the coals for what you were saying back then, even privately, a reach out saying, hey, sorry about that.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Hardly. I do write about that, though. And, some things you can’t say about China. It is a five year anniversary, I think, this week that I first said, you know, that the coronavirus pandemic probably came from the lab where they research coronaviruses, and the director is nicknamed the bat lady, and they have notoriously bad safety practice, not some food market that doesn’t have bats in a city that doesn’t have bats. Right? I mean, you would expect Chinese Communist officials to, come down on me like a ton of bricks. It’s no big deal. But I think a lot of Americans would be surprised that The Washington Post and CNN and the New York Times and other citadels of American culture and media and opinion making did the same. It’s just what I’ve been talking about earlier with you, and what I write about in the book is that China has massive influence and leverage throughout our society, and people who are always ready to manned the ramparts on behalf of Communist China.

GUY BENSON: Elbridge Colby is a nominee from President Trump for a key position at the Pentagon. This dispute has apparently spilled out into public view, where you’ve now seen the vice president getting involved. The president’s son put out a piece today. There’s this allegation that you’re working to scuttle the nomination behind the scenes. Or at least you’re expressing concerns about that nomination. What’s actually going on here?

SEN. TOM COTTON: No. Guy, what I do on every nomination is to make sure that the nominees are in alignment with the president, especially on critical national security, jobs and national security policies. And that I think that they’re going to pursue the shared objectives that I have with President Trump. So, for instance, for every nominee in the Department of Defense, Department of State, Intelligence community, if they would play any role, preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, I want to make sure that they share the president’s opinion on that, and they will advance the president’s policy that we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, that we cannot hope to contain a nuclear Iran. So I’ve done that with past nominees. I’ll continue to do it with all nominees going forward on that and other issues. And also outside of the context of national security, you know, consider Bobby Kennedy, he was pro-choice the entire life. But I pressed him in private, and then he testified in public that he would support and uphold and advance the president’s pro-life policy. So this is all just a normal part of the process.

GUY BENSON: One more on a nominee. It’s Lori Chavez Dreamer, the labor secretary designate from President Trump. A lot of conservatives very worried about her record, specifically on labor issues. The former Republican congresswoman from Oregon. Have you looked into some of her positions, like very, very left wing positions at the Proact and that sort of thing? Do you have questions about her nomination?

SEN. TOM COTTON: I have Guy, and again, this is a good example of what I’m talking about, just like with Bobby Kennedy and abortion. She introduced legislation in the House that would override state right to work laws, compel people to join unions and pay dues into them, without their consent. I obviously can’t support that. I don’t support it. Arkansas has one of the best right to work laws in the country. I met with Lori. She made it clear that what she did as a representative for her own district in Oregon is different than what she’ll do as President Trump’s secretary of Labor. That’s President Trump. Support state right to work law, if she will, as well. I also, am concerned about the Biden administration’s efforts to shut down so-called 14 seat workshops. These are the sheltered workshops that allow developmentally disabled adults to get outside the house to find meaningful work, to make friends, to have the satisfaction of being a productive, contributing citizen. The left and unions hate them. I made sure that Laurie understands that we have a lot of them in Arkansas, and I want to protect them. She’s prepared to commit to that. Of course. I want to see her make those commitments in public at her hearing this week. But that’s all a normal part of the process.

GUY BENSON: Finally, Senator, Hamas, the terrorist organization, at least now claiming that they have killed those two babies that have been held hostage for so long, or at least that they’re dead and they were taken alive. And if, in fact, Hamas is not lying about this, if those children are dead, that would be yet more blood, specifically of children on their hands. Just a nightmare for the people of Israel, for that family specifically. A lot of people have been heartsick over that particular family over this ordeal. What would it say yet again, screaming loudly about Hamas if in fact, these children are dead.

SEN. TOM COTTON: To Hamas as monstrous terrorists, and that we cannot live in a world in which Hamas still controls a single inch of territory, certainly not on Israel’s border. It also gets back to the point we were talking about earlier, about Iran ever getting nuclear weapons. Iran already patronized this. Hamas and Hezbollah already provided them with weapons and training and financing, and that’s without a nuclear umbrella. Imagine what they would do with a nuclear umbrella. So we have to support Israel. We have to back them to the hilt in fighting to destroy Hamas. We have to make sure Israel or Iran never goes nuclear. And that’s not just an Israel issue that is dangerous to Israel, but that’s a United States issue, because Iran is also building ballistic missiles that could reach the United States, just like North Korea did. So there’s a reason why Iran calls Israel the little Satan and calls us the Great Satan.

GUY BENSON: And one of Iran’s strategic partners is China. And that burgeoning, very serious threat to us, to global security, to Western values, is one that has to be spoken about very clearly. We can’t avoid some of the difficult truths, and that involves saying things out loud that need to be said, including things that you’re supposed to not say apparently, about China, seven of which are enumerated in the brand new book by our guest, Tom cotton. Seven Things You can’t Say about China. He says them. He explains them. He expounds upon them. And I recommend that you read this book because it’s hard to imagine. It’s hard to conceive of a more serious topic. U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, our guest here on the Guy Benson Show. Senator, we so appreciate your time. Best of luck with the book. We look forward to talking again.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Thank you very much, Guy.

GUY BENSON: You bet.

GUY BENSON: Happy hour time on the Guy Benson Show on this Tuesday. Thanks for joining us. Guy Benson show.com is our website where all sorts of things are available. Lots of content, including the podcast. Free on demand every day. Yes. No charge at all. Guy Benson Show, dot com, Fox News podcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This radio hour sponsored by the Finnish Long drink. Delicious and refreshing. Please drink responsibly 21 plus only the long drink. Com. I’m happy to welcome back to the show. Now, United States Senator Tom cotton, Republican from Arkansas. He’s out with a new book, Seven Things You Can’t Say About China. Senator, welcome back to the show.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Hey, Guy, it’s great to be on with you. Thanks for having me.

GUY BENSON: I want to talk about news of the day and politics and all of that. But before we get to any of it, let’s focus on this new book, seven Things You Can’t Say About China. We only have so much time, so I don’t want to run through all seven. I am particularly interested in a few of the points that you make. If you can just maybe give a taste of what your book explains and reports for our audience. One of them is China is preparing for war. If you can get into the details there. And then, perhaps relatedly, another one is China has infiltrated our government. That is a scary claim. I think it’s undeniably true in certain respects. Why don’t we start there when you assert that China, the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated our the U.S. government? What do you mean?

SEN. TOM COTTON: Yeah. Well, first guy, it’s important to note one of the other things I say you can’t say about China and that’s that it’s waging an economic world war, and it has been for several decades against the United States. And the reason that is so important is that the the power and the wealth that China has built up has allowed it to underwrite that rapid military buildup that has preparing for war. It’s also allowed it to infiltrate our society and our government. So, as I say, in the chapter about China infiltrating our government, yes. China uses just traditional spy methods. Think about, you know, what you saw in the Cold War from period pieces like The Americans or spy fiction? But that’s not just history that’s actually happening today in Washington with Chinese spies. But that’s far from the only thing they’re doing. They’re trying to infiltrate our military with old fashioned spies. They’re recruiting veterans to help train their military. They’re launching cyber attacks against our defense industry. That’s one reason why the People’s Liberation Army aircraft looks strange. And like American aircraft, they’re trying to buy land up around sensitive military sites, but they’re also engaged deeply in the Washington Swamp, again, not just to traditional spies, but to trying to influence politicians. You may recall that Bill Clinton’s campaign get almost $3 million and had to return, and criminal cases were brought against Chinese influence agents. China is adept at putting, Chinese spies around politicians. Think about Dianne Feinstein, driver, or Eric Swalwell, supporter, who he later had apparently a romantic relationship with. And also maybe even more pervasive is what I call the new China lobby, people who are working on behalf of Chinese interest and Chinese companies, which are almost always linked back to the Chinese Communist Party. These are former lawmakers of both parties, former aides of leaders in both parties. There’s also people going back in the government. You know, I remember in the Biden administration, you had the general counsel at the CIA and the director of national intelligence. Both had worked as lawyers for Chinese interest at their law firms. And their defense was well, the cases came to us. Well, you know, these liberal law firms for what? You turn down cases depending on tobacco companies or oil and gas companies. But apparently you’re compelled to work on behalf of Chinese communist interests. So. So China has extended its influence to Washington. But it’s not just Washington either. It’s state and local government, because they know that state and local officials can provide influence into Washington, can become a farm team for people to later get elected to national office, and in the meantime, can provide lots of concrete benefits, you know, tax breaks and subsidies and land grants and so forth. When you’re trying to recruit Chinese businesses into America. So at every level, from the city hall all the way to the white House, China is trying to infiltrate and influence our government.

GUY BENSON: And also just the country as well. In terms of surveillance infrastructure in the United States. I know a lot of us talked about the Chinese spy balloon, which was a disturbing incident. It was very brazen on their part, kind of clumsy compared to a lot of the things that they’re engaged in and their subterfuge. But some of the elements of what they’re trying, and it’s not just in the U.S., it’s in other Western countries as well. They want to basically wire their surveillance into our national infrastructure, and that’s beyond on screens through TikTok and things like that. I’m talking about like CCTV, right?

SEN. TOM COTTON: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one good example guy is the fight we had against Wall Wei, the Chinese telecom giant, a few years ago. They are a massive company. They provide handsets like, you know, smart phones. They also provide kind of a backbone for, communications networks. And it just so happens that Wall Wei had sold a bunch of inexpensive devices to rural telephone companies who, just conveniently enough, located throughout the Mountain West and the northern Great Plains, where a lot of our nuclear missile bases and silos are located. And and this is an example of what I mean about how Chinese influence is pervasive. We heard from the owners of many of those companies about how hard it would be to take away devices out of their networks, and that it could be potentially catastrophic losses for them. Now, those people were not witting agents of the Chinese Communist Party. In my experience, almost all of them were great, patriotic Americans who were providing good services to their communities and good high paying jobs for their workers. But they had become dependent unwittingly on Chinese communist influence companies.

GUY BENSON: Yeah, they burrow in, right? They embed themselves. They should try to make it as hard to extract them as possible. And that includes TikTok. I mean, just to go down that path for a second here at Senator, since this book is about China and the threat there, I mean, I see that we have Google and Apple once again restoring TikTok to those app stores. The law that was passed and is the law of the land right now forbids that. I know that there’s this brief grace period where President Trump has basically signed a waiver into existence, but I didn’t realize that superseded the ban on this from our app stores. It just seems like enough people were annoyed enough about TikTok that we’re ignoring the law that we passed.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Yeah, I mean, I think it would have been better let the law go into effect on the day before President Trump took office and leave it. In effect, that would have kept the pressure on TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, the sale and cut ties entirely from China. The whole point of the law is not to ban TikTok in America, it’s to force its sale from a Chinese communist influence company. So I can’t be used by the communist against us.

GUY BENSON: Is that still realistic? Do you think that still might happen?

SEN. TOM COTTON: I think that the president’s goal is to comply with the law as it’s written, during this short period of non enforcement. I think the companies should follow the law because there’s liability they face. Beyond just Department of Justice Enforcement. But all that said, what we wanted all along is not to ban Tik Tok, but to get Tik Tok completely severed from Chinese communist, because I recognize that other social media platforms also can cause harm to Americans. But it’s a horse of a different color when it’s being purposely done by our main adversary. Now I hear people saying that, oh, it’s just, you know, kids, data wouldn’t matter. Well, kids grow up pretty fast. Yeah, of course there are adults on the platform too. But those kids do become adults, and they take jobs and law enforcement and military and intelligence and sensitive industrial posts. I’ve also heard what the you know, the content is mostly harmless and a lot of the content is harmless. You know, cat videos or how to videos about home repair or cooking, and that’s fine. But there’s a lot of content. It’s harmful. And it’s specifically directed at America’s kids to encourage girls to have eating disorders or negative body images to show boys the most obscene kinds of pornography or graphic violence, to encourage drug use, or even glamorized suicide for kids when they express sad or depressive thoughts. Of course, it’s also a tool of Chinese propaganda. That’s why you see the overwhelming amount of anti-Semitic content on TikTok. Unlike anything you see on any other social media app. And finally, you can’t. It’s just like. I mean, you can’t learn anything on TikTok about China, about Tiananmen Square, about Tibet or about Hong Kong and so on and so forth. So it remains a real and genuine danger to America, especially to our kids.

GUY BENSON: It’s information warfare, and it’s sitting in the pockets of millions and millions and millions of Americans right now. And I shudder to think how especially the propaganda side, because the data side can definitely be leveraged down the line for blackmail and all sorts of other things. But propaganda on a mass scale, directly in front of the eyeballs of especially young Americans, the way they could turn that spigot on if and when they choose to. Beyond what they’ve already done, that is what is so highly concerning, which is why this is something we’ve watched so closely. And it leads to that second point I wanted to explore just a little bit from your book. China is preparing for war. That’s a scary thing to hear, right? It’s a giant country, more than a billion people. A very evil ideology, at least at the very top from the regime. When you hear a U.S. senator with lots of insight into intelligence and that sort of thing. Warning that our biggest adversary in the world is preparing for war. I guess the question is for war. Against whom are you talking about? Taiwan? Some sort of expansionist war? Are you talking about a war against us or just girding generally here? What is the warning?

SEN. TOM COTTON: Well, the highest point in the world is over Taiwan. And the People’s Liberation Army has been preparing for decades to invade or blockade, or both Taiwan occupy, occupied and ultimately annex it to the mainland. Now they know, as any sensible person knows, that if Taiwan is left to its own, it can’t defend itself against China indefinitely. It’s an island of about 25 million people. China has about 1.4 billion people. That’s why we’ve always armed Taiwan. It’s why I argue in the book that the only, the only sensible outcome to a potential conflict over Taiwan is not to fight it in the first place, to deter it from happening. But that’s harder now than it once was, because China has undertaken the biggest military buildup in history. It’s, increased their own spending by more than 1,000%. The their military is more than double our size. Their army is more than double our size. One of their shipyards, just one, can produce more ships for their navy than all of our shipyards combined. So there’s no question that China has been preparing for a war over Taiwan, not just or primarily to be able to conquer Taiwan, which they know they could eventually do. It was just fought out one on one, but rather to keep America out of the war and to defeat us if we enter the war. That’s why it’s so important that we build up our military, specifically with the capabilities needed to deter China from going for the jugular in the first place. Because if you had a war of any kind, even if it was inconclusive or stalemate and China didn’t achieve its goals, you’d still have immediate Great Depression around the globe. Stock markets would collapse, life savings would be lost, jobs would be lost, shelves in stores in America would be empty. To say nothing of the thousands of lives that we would lose for our troops, hundreds of aircrafts and ships and so forth. We have to be strong. We have to Taiwan be strong to prevent that war from ever happening.

GUY BENSON: Speaking of a stalemated war and an outcome that I think Beijing will be highly interested to watch. You’ve got Russia and you’ve got Ukraine. And now these very initial conversations and negotiations around how that conflict might come to a close. And I know the Ukrainians seem to be alarmed that at least at the very first stages here, they have not been included in a conversation between the U.S. and Russia. You’ve got Europeans also expressing consternation about that. President Trump has made clear that the Ukrainians, of course, will be part of these conversations. I don’t want to see any sort of outcome imposed upon Ukraine. That’s what the Russians already tried with their unjustified war of aggression. They tried to impose an outcome on Ukraine, basically the taking over of that country. Unfortunately, the Russians have largely failed. But hundreds of thousands of people are dead. Almost everyone would like to see an outcome and peace, but a peace that sustainable for Ukrainian security and sovereignty moving forward. That gives an off ramp to the Russians without rewarding them for what they did. Are you worried about the way this is shaping up. Are you encouraged by the early talks? How should this play out?

SEN. TOM COTTON: Well, I think it’s important to recognize the reality in Ukraine is mess right now is a mess because of Joe Biden. His weakness tempted Putin to invade in the first place. He pussyfoot it around for three years. And it’s clear in retrospect now that his strategy all along was to lose the war, just lose it after the election. And that’s the rally that that we all have to deal with. My understanding is the talks in Riyadh today are about reestablishing channels, with Russia. That’s obviously going to be necessary for any kind of negotiations about a ceasefire. And as you said, that President Trump intends to once we reestablish those channels and maybe establish some contours or parameters to have, Vladimir Zelensky’s representatives sit down as well. And I think what we have to hope for is a durable and lasting truce that prevents or protects what JD Vance said last week in Europe, Ukraine’s sovereign independence and prevents a third Russian invasion of Ukraine. We’ve had the first and the second already on the last two Democratic presidents watches. We don’t want to have a third invasion in the future. So if we can get that kind of durable truce that protects Ukraine’s sovereign independence and that reliably prevents a third invasion, I think right now, given where we are after three years of failed Biden policy, that that might be a good outcome for Ukraine, for the United States, for the, for the world.

GUY BENSON: How much, say, should Ukraine have in what’s a good outcome for them? Because I think one of the concerns is Trump made this promise we’re going to end the war. And if he’s willing to give, let’s say, by Zelensky’s estimation, too many concessions to Putin. He might he might balk at that. And then what right is it too premature to talk about that outcome or that that possibility at least?

SEN. TOM COTTON: No. I mean, President Zelensky said that he has a good relationship with President Trump and he trust President Trump. And I think he’s going to communicate where those red lines are for him, what he thinks is necessary. I think he’s probably realistic about where the war is right now and what Ukraine needs to do to protect itself, protect its future, and prevent a future invasion. So I don’t want to prejudge the negotiations or say what Ukraine should or should not do. You never know what kind of trade offs might be offered by both sides. But I do think that President Zelensky trusts President Trump, or they’ve had a positive relationship for a long time. And that he understands that what President Trump wants is a durable and lasting truce that protects Ukraine’s sovereign independence and prevents a renewal of the fighting or a future invasion.

GUY BENSON: Senator Tom cotton A few other things here. Yesterday marked the five year anniversary of a Washington Post headline attacking you for spreading conspiracy theories about the lab leak out of Wuhan. Of course, you’ve been vindicated on that point many times over. I just am curious, have you ever heard from any of the journalists or public health bureaucrats or anyone else who raked you over the coals for what you were saying back then, even privately, a reach out saying, hey, sorry about that.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Hardly. I do write about that, though. And, some things you can’t say about China. It is a five year anniversary, I think, this week that I first said, you know, that the coronavirus pandemic probably came from the lab where they research coronaviruses, and the director is nicknamed the bat lady, and they have notoriously bad safety practice, not some food market that doesn’t have bats in a city that doesn’t have bats. Right? I mean, you would expect Chinese Communist officials to, come down on me like a ton of bricks. It’s no big deal. But I think a lot of Americans would be surprised that The Washington Post and CNN and the New York Times and other citadels of American culture and media and opinion making did the same. It’s just what I’ve been talking about earlier with you, and what I write about in the book is that China has massive influence and leverage throughout our society, and people who are always ready to manned the ramparts on behalf of Communist China.

GUY BENSON: Elbridge Colby is a nominee from President Trump for a key position at the Pentagon. This dispute has apparently spilled out into public view, where you’ve now seen the vice president getting involved. The president’s son put out a piece today. There’s this allegation that you’re working to scuttle the nomination behind the scenes. Or at least you’re expressing concerns about that nomination. What’s actually going on here?

SEN. TOM COTTON: No. Guy, what I do on every nomination is to make sure that the nominees are in alignment with the president, especially on critical national security, jobs and national security policies. And that I think that they’re going to pursue the shared objectives that I have with President Trump. So, for instance, for every nominee in the Department of Defense, Department of State, Intelligence community, if they would play any role, preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, I want to make sure that they share the president’s opinion on that, and they will advance the president’s policy that we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, that we cannot hope to contain a nuclear Iran. So I’ve done that with past nominees. I’ll continue to do it with all nominees going forward on that and other issues. And also outside of the context of national security, you know, consider Bobby Kennedy, he was pro-choice the entire life. But I pressed him in private, and then he testified in public that he would support and uphold and advance the president’s pro-life policy. So this is all just a normal part of the process.

GUY BENSON: One more on a nominee. It’s Lori Chavez Dreamer, the labor secretary designate from President Trump. A lot of conservatives very worried about her record, specifically on labor issues. The former Republican congresswoman from Oregon. Have you looked into some of her positions, like very, very left wing positions at the Proact and that sort of thing? Do you have questions about her nomination?

SEN. TOM COTTON: I have Guy, and again, this is a good example of what I’m talking about, just like with Bobby Kennedy and abortion. She introduced legislation in the House that would override state right to work laws, compel people to join unions and pay dues into them, without their consent. I obviously can’t support that. I don’t support it. Arkansas has one of the best right to work laws in the country. I met with Lori. She made it clear that what she did as a representative for her own district in Oregon is different than what she’ll do as President Trump’s secretary of Labor. That’s President Trump. Support state right to work law, if she will, as well. I also, am concerned about the Biden administration’s efforts to shut down so-called 14 seat workshops. These are the sheltered workshops that allow developmentally disabled adults to get outside the house to find meaningful work, to make friends, to have the satisfaction of being a productive, contributing citizen. The left and unions hate them. I made sure that Laurie understands that we have a lot of them in Arkansas, and I want to protect them. She’s prepared to commit to that. Of course. I want to see her make those commitments in public at her hearing this week. But that’s all a normal part of the process.

GUY BENSON: Finally, Senator, Hamas, the terrorist organization, at least now claiming that they have killed those two babies that have been held hostage for so long, or at least that they’re dead and they were taken alive. And if, in fact, Hamas is not lying about this, if those children are dead, that would be yet more blood, specifically of children on their hands. Just a nightmare for the people of Israel, for that family specifically. A lot of people have been heartsick over that particular family over this ordeal. What would it say yet again, screaming loudly about Hamas if in fact, these children are dead.

SEN. TOM COTTON: To Hamas as monstrous terrorists, and that we cannot live in a world in which Hamas still controls a single inch of territory, certainly not on Israel’s border. It also gets back to the point we were talking about earlier, about Iran ever getting nuclear weapons. Iran already patronized this. Hamas and Hezbollah already provided them with weapons and training and financing, and that’s without a nuclear umbrella. Imagine what they would do with a nuclear umbrella. So we have to support Israel. We have to back them to the hilt in fighting to destroy Hamas. We have to make sure Israel or Iran never goes nuclear. And that’s not just an Israel issue that is dangerous to Israel, but that’s a United States issue, because Iran is also building ballistic missiles that could reach the United States, just like North Korea did. So there’s a reason why Iran calls Israel the little Satan and calls us the Great Satan.

GUY BENSON: And one of Iran’s strategic partners is China. And that burgeoning, very serious threat to us, to global security, to Western values, is one that has to be spoken about very clearly. We can’t avoid some of the difficult truths, and that involves saying things out loud that need to be said, including things that you’re supposed to not say apparently, about China, seven of which are enumerated in the brand new book by our guest, Tom cotton. Seven Things You can’t Say about China. He says them. He explains them. He expounds upon them. And I recommend that you read this book because it’s hard to imagine. It’s hard to conceive of a more serious topic. U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, our guest here on the Guy Benson Show. Senator, we so appreciate your time. Best of luck with the book. We look forward to talking again.

SEN. TOM COTTON: Thank you very much, Guy. Going to be okay.

GUY BENSON: You bet. We’ll take a break. We’ll be right back on the Guy Benson show. Miss a minute? Miss a lot. The Guy Benson show.