Chinese-based TikTok is "100%" a national security threat, but the White House won't get behind bipartisan efforts in Congress to ban the social media video site, which is being used to mine data from its users, many of whom are young, Rep. Tim Burchett said Thursday on Newsmax.
"It's odd that in China, it's used as an educational tool, but over here it's used for slip and fall videos, kids doing all the crazy stuff," the Tennessee Republican, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
Burchett accused the Chinese of watching "everything we do."
"I was told by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that they count the number of paper clips going into the Longworth Building," said Burchett. "They have spies everywhere and they use this to spy on our children. [They put] a bug on your phone to where they know exactly what you're thinking, what you're going to be purchasing, what your trends are."
That, he continued "makes America look bad, and we should be focusing on the positive and not the negative. That's exactly what TikTok does. It's a nightmare and you're allowing the communist Chinese into your home basically to spy on you and your family."
Burchett said that he thinks the White House isn't taking action "because it's compromised by the Chinese."
"You have a balloon that flies over our entire continental United States," he said. "Military experts, Democrats, said to shoot it down. The White House says no. It's the same with TikTok."
Burchett also on Thursday slammed White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who has commented recently that the White House does not use TikTok, as a "walking 'Saturday Night Live' skit."
"It's a clown show with this bunch and they've and they're clearly not for the American people," Burchett said. "They have clearly sold us out to the communist Chinese. There's no other explanation."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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