Sen. Lindsey Graham said he urged President Trump not to shut down the popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok, instead proposing that an American company should buy it and remove it from the control of the Chinese Communist Party.
“So here’s the deal. If TikTok is saved, you can thank me,” the South Carolina Republican said on Snapchat’s “Good Luck America.”
Graham said he fielded phone calls from people, including retired Gen. David Petraeus and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, voicing concerns about the widespread popularity of the app Trump was looking to ban.
“When they told me it was the dancing cat video site, you know where the cats dance, I’m all in. If it’s up to me, we’ll never shut down anything that good to show animals dancing, and all the other stuff you do on TikTok,” Graham said in the interview that aired on Thursday.
“So I called up Trump. I said, ‘Listen, the Chinese part is true. You’ve got to be worried about Communist China owning this platform, having all this data. But if you shut down this site, you’re going to get kicked in the ass by a bunch of young people. Bad decision. Let Microsoft or somebody buy it, put it in American hands and allow the platform to survive and thrive because so many people enjoy it,” he continued.
Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said there is no question that China could use TikTok to gather intelligence on American users.
“Yeah. I mean, the Chinese Communist Party and business interests are one. Snapchat doesn’t have to report to Trump, but the Chinese Communist Party pretty much owns every business enterprise and all the private data being collected by TikTok,” Graham said.
“It’s a Chinese-based company, you worry that the Chinese Communist Party will manipulate it. Now they’re trying to affect our elections. It’s not just Russia. It’s China. It’s a lot of people,” he said.
Trump, citing national security concerns, earlier this month ordered ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to sell the app within 90 days and to divest itself of any data gathered on users in the US or he would ban the app.
Kevin Mayer, the CEO of TikTok, announced he was stepping down on Wednesday because of the changing “political environment” around the social media site that has 100 million US users.
