Representative Mike Turner (R-OH) said Wednesday on CNN’s “The Lead” that President Donald Trump should not have paused the law requiring China to divest from TikTok.
Host Jake Tapper said, “Among the flurry of executive orders President Trump has issued, I know there’s one that you’re very concerned on because he there was a law to ban TikTok. It was passed by the House, passed by the Senate, signed into law, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. but President Trump is putting a 75-day pause on that. I don’t even know, I mean, I didn’t even know that a president could do that. but what’s your reaction?”
Turner said, “Well, this is a great editorial in The Wall Street Journal today. I think that encapsulates what you just said. This is a law that was passed by Congress and signed by the President of the United States, and it includes dates and actions that need to be taken in order for a sitting president to have an ability to pause it’s effect. That is that ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, began the process of being able to disinvest from TikTok. Now, ByteDance has said they will not do so. I believe it’s because they don’t really see it as a business. I believe it that it is used by them in a as a propaganda tool.”
He added, “I have grave concerns that it’s a national security risk, that the access to data and other apps on equipment, phones, that the apps could be on are at risk. That’s why many governments around the world have banned TikTok from being used on their equipment. Even India has banned TikTok in its country, and we had begun the process of requiring disinvestment. I think this national security threat. It is a real one that, you know, this law that we passed needs to be enforced. China’s interest in, in TikTok needs to be divested.”
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