Republican lawmakers tell Biden to get off TikTok after signing bill that could see app banned
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) urged President Biden on Monday to lead by example and suspend his campaign’s use of TikTok over the threat to national security posed by the Chinese-owned app.
The Biden campaign continues to use the popular social media platform despite the president having signed a bill into law last week that compels the Chinese government-linked company ByteDance to divest from TikTok within nine months or face a US ban.
“Your presidential campaign defiantly continues to use TikTok, ignoring the serious concerns your own administration’s officials have raised,” the two Republican lawmakers wrote in a letter to the 81-year-old president.
“We call on you to suspend the use of your TikTok account until ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese owner, sells the application to a responsible US buyer,” Ernst and Nehls demanded.
Hours after Biden signed the TikTok bill – HR 815 – his campaign posted a video on the app of the incumbent mocking former President Donald Trump for thinking “windmills cause cancer.”
The “bidenhq” TikTok account, which frequently takes aim at the presumptive GOP nominee for president, has more than 300,000 followers and has posted more than 100 videos since it launched in February.
“A fragmented media environment requires us to show up and meet voters where they are — and that includes online,” a Biden campaign official said last week, defending its use of the app.
“TikTok is one of many places we’re making sure our content is being seen by voters,” the rep added, arguing that the stakes are too high in 2024 to not use “every tool we have to reach young voters where they are.”
The person noted that the campaign has “enhanced security measures” in place.
Ernst and Nehls slammed the president for prioritizing “politics over protecting national security.”
“The national security threats TikTok poses are grave,” they said. “Until TikTok is out of [ Chinese Communist Party] hands, we call on you to suspend your TikTok account.”
“Leadership starts at the very top, and we hope you can set a good example to the many Americans using TikTok by suspending the use of this application until we know for sure that it is safe for use.”
Biden administration officials have warned that Americans’ data, while in the hands of ByteDance, could be at risk.
“We are concerned, as every American ought to be concerned, about data security and what ByteDance and what the Chinese Communist Party can do with the information they can glean off of Americans’ use of the application,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said last month.
“Do we want the data from TikTok — children’s data, adults’ data — to be going — to be staying here in America or going to China?” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in March, when discussing the TikTok bill.
“That is the fundamental question at issue here,” he added. “And the President is clear where he stands on that fundamental issue.”
