Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, acknowledged that former President Trump was correct, at least in regards to the well-known video-sharing app TikTok.
The senator claimed that the Chinese-owned app poses a serious security and privacy risk in an appearance with “Fox News Sunday,”
He told Shannon Bream, “I think Donald Trump was right. I mean, TikTok is an enormous threat. So, if you’re a parent, and you’ve got a kid on TikTok, I would be very, very concerned. All of that data that your child is inputting and receiving is being stored somewhere in Beijing.”
Warner has previously agreed that Trump was right to try to outlaw the app. Similar remarks were made by him to The Sydney Morning Herald last month.
Virginia Democrat Sen. Mark Warner on TikTok: "I think Donald Trump was right. TikTok is an enormous threat." pic.twitter.com/8g2fRwxrF7
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 20, 2022
“This is not something you would normally hear me say, but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago. If your country uses Huawei, if your kids are on TikTok the ability for China to have undue influence is a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat than any kind of actual, armed conflict.”
In light of worries about how TikTok’s parent firm, ByteDance, manages data, Republican lawmakers and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr have called for a ban on the social media app.
Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, has also spoken out against the danger that TikTok and China in general.
The app is currently negotiating to be separated from ByteDance with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency panel that examines foreign business deals.
