Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) continued his campaign against the House bill that would prevent app stores from hosting the popular short-form video platform TikTok.
Paul appeared on Tucker Carlson Uncensored on Thursday to further extrapolate on his disagreement with the bill, which passed unanimously out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee before passing in the House. It has yet to be brought before the Senate, but Paul was not shy to say he does not want TikTok banned, as China has done in its censure of the platform.
“Look, I’ve written two books about Chinese communism and what it does both during the COVID leak and also what it did during Mao’s reign, so I am no fan of Chinese communism. But at the same time, we can’t sort of like, you know, emulate the Chinese to try to protect our way of life, becoming like the Chinese in banning things,” Paul said. “And this isn’t the way. Emulating Chinese communists is not the best way to combat Chinese communists.”
Carlson seemingly agreed with Paul as he framed the bill. The anchor attacked the bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), for not doing more to protect the United States from Chinese realtors buying up land or Chinese spies from sending balloons.
“But what Dan Crenshaw is doing is banning a social media app, and probably not the first social media app Dan Crenshaw will call for banning, or the Biden administration, with the help of Republican leaders, will try to ban,” Carlson said.
Paul and Carlson made a point to suggest the ban wasn’t about China but about free speech. TikTok is known for allowing a variety of political viewpoints and is used by some 180 million Americans.
“Once you start objecting to content, what you’re objecting to is speech. And I object to a lot of it. I don’t use it. I’ve never been on TikTok,” Paul said. “I read about what’s on TikTok, but I don’t use — I don’t use TikTok.”
Carlson added he, too, does not use the platform.
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The senator cast doubt that the app is owned by China. However, TikTok previously acknowledged in a letter to the Senate that it did store some information from its paid creators in China despite then-President Donald Trump’s order, called “Project Texas,” which was meant to move data to U.S. soil.
President Joe Biden has already promised his support of the bill should it reach his desk. The bill would allow Biden to decide which countries are deemed “foreign adversaries” and thus ban their apps from app stores.
