'This Week' Transcript 3-17-24: White House Security Communications Adviser John Kirby, Rep. Mike Turner, and Rep. Ro Khanna

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Martha, look, there are two national security issues that proponents of the bill have cited. Both are legitimate. One, will the data get to a foreign government, in this case, the Chinese Communist Party? Two, will the Chinese Communist Party have an influence on algorithms?

We can deal with both with a narrowly-tailored law. Let’s ban any data going to a foreign country and protect American data. Second, let’s ban any foreign interference to the social media app, whether that’s TikTok or another app.

And, by the way, those laws would also cover data brokers, which are selling data to a Chinese company.

So this bill is not actually addressing the issue. Seventy-one percent of Americans want to protect data privacy. Only 31 percent want a ban on TikTok. Congress, A, doesn’t understand, in my view, all of the social media and how it’s working, and, B, is out of touch with what the American people want.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

So, here’s --

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Martha, let me -- I think some of the facts would be helpful. So, TikTok is owned by ByteDance. ByteDance is a Chinese company. It has 60 percent international investors, including KKR and General Atlantic. Three of the five board members are Americans. They have data that currently Oracle is managing in Texas.

As you are -- mentioned earlier to Congressman Turner, there have been reports in some cases that that data has leaked and had access to people in China. No evidence publicly that the Chinese Communist Party has had it, but there has been evidence that they could have it in Chinese national.

So, pass a law, one, to prevent these apps, whether it’s TikTok or Facebook or YouTube for collecting data. That bill has been sitting in the House Commerce Committee for years and it doesn’t move.

Second, pass a law that if there’s evidence that the data goes to China, then Oracle and TikTok would be held liable, civilly or criminally. Third, pass a law that if Chinese nationals are involved in the algorithms, people are claiming these algorithms are manipulating Americans. If there’s information -- insight evidence that a Chinese national or any foreign national is manipulating algorithms, that would be illegal.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Well, if the bill was just a divestment bill, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I mean the – what the first rule the government should have done is pass the privacy laws (INAUDIBLE) and had perhaps they facilitated these American investors to having a spin-off and having TikTok be U.S. owned. We didn’t do that.

The two First Amendment concerns relate to the ban, which is the second part of the legislation. The court has said that you have to have the least restrictive approach when you have a compelling speech interest. Here you have a speech interest of 170 million Americans. I showed several less restrictive approaches than a ban.

The court has also said you need alternative means of communication with a group on TikTok. Now, you asked Congressman Turner, you said, well, what about these 170 million, many of these people, 224,000, have a livelihood, how are they going to communicate with the TikTok audience? And if we say, well, they can just go on some other social media app, well those members of Congress haven’t talked to the TikTok influencer creators because that’s not how it works.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

The audience is very different.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

I think it would be very – I think it would be hard and I – and I don’t think the Supreme Court would look at the audience and say, OK, you can just have people go on to a different app. But I certainly don’t think it’s least restrictive.

And the point is that they – there’s been no evidence right now, you’d have to have a compelling interest, what is the actual evidence that – that you couldn’t just pass a data privacy law or a law banning data going to a foreign country and – and get that done that way.

And I – and the – the frustration is that we haven’t been able to pass these data privacy laws. I mean it took three days to pass a – a ban – a sale, and then if not ban on TikTok. And we haven’t passed data privacy. We haven’t passed the laws to ban foreign interference. The app where there actually was foreign in my district, or near my district, was Facebook. We aren’t tackling those issues. And then we’ve just passed this blanket TikTok.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

No, it did – it did concern me, the data privacy. I've been – I passed (INAUDIBLE) --

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

No, I – I actually think it would be easier to pass – once we pass if. If we passed a law saying you can’t transfer data, you can’t collect data, that would actually solve the problem.

And, by the way, there are so many data brokers who are sending information to China. This law does nothing to them. It does nothing in terms of other social media apps that are collecting data and maybe transferring data.

And now this – one of the concerns that people were citing is, well, there’s a lot of folks who have pro-Palestine viewpoints on TikTok. Well, there are pro-Palestine viewpoints on Instagram and Facebook and all it takes is to go to a college campus and realize that the demo – that demographic has more sympathy to what – the innocent loss of life in Gaza. I don’t say they’re right –

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

But that doesn’t mean that that’s evidence of manipulation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

I say, first of all, Hamas committed a brutal terrorist attack on October 7th. The U.N. found evidence that there was rape and sexual assault. We need to unambiguously condemn that October 7th attack. And then let me say that President Biden now, and his team, are shifting and understanding that Netanyahu’s policies have not been in the interest of protecting civilian life, that too many innocent civilians have died, and he has finally called for a ceasefire with the release of hostages and they’re being heard.

Now, it’s obvious that I have had disagreements with President Biden on this. But here’s what I know, at least he’s listening. Donald Trump wouldn’t listen.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source