Louder with Crowder - BREAKING: TikTok "Ban" Bill Passes the House! Guest Vivek Ramaswamy

00:00:00.000 🎵 Music 🎵 🎵 Music 🎵

00:00:04.000 🎵 Music 🎵 Don't you want to show me your symphony?

00:00:22.000 Nobody ever does.

00:00:25.000 And here I thought you could talk to me.

00:00:35.000 I understand.

00:00:36.000 Nobody ever does.

00:00:41.000 And here I thought you could talk to me.

00:00:46.000 I understand.

00:00:52.000 And here I thought you could talk to me.

00:00:54.000 We're sorry.

00:01:13.000 I understand.

00:01:33.000 And here I thought you could talk to me.

00:01:37.000 I'll just have to think of something else.

00:01:39.000 And here I thought you could talk to me.

00:01:41.000 I thought you could talk to me.

00:01:46.000 Things won't be the same.

00:01:47.000 We're sorry.

00:01:49.000 I'm sorry.

00:01:52.000 I'm sorry.

00:01:55.000 I just have to think of something else.

00:02:15.000 I thought you could talk to me.

00:02:21.000 I'm sorry.

00:02:37.000 It's juice.

00:02:40.000 Peace. 1.00

00:02:41.000 Oh Shut up, silly woman! 1.00

00:02:45.000 I'm not a boob guy. 1.00

00:03:09.000 I'm a boob guy.

00:03:45.000 Help! 0.98

00:03:48.000 Medic!

00:03:52.000 Oh my god.

00:03:54.000 What's wrong, Sam?

00:03:55.000 Are you bleeding?

00:03:55.000 What's wrong?

00:03:56.000 No, I'm not bleeding, Kim.

00:03:57.000 I hurt myself lifting the five pound dumbbell.

00:04:00.000 So you're sore from your workout?

00:04:02.000 Yeah.

00:04:04.000 Actually, I might have something for that.

00:04:07.000 Here, try this tincture from CB Distillery.

00:04:10.000 Oh, wow.

00:04:11.000 Yeah, 80% of people report less pain after working out while taking it.

00:04:14.000 You should give it a try.

00:04:16.000 Kim, thank you so much.

00:04:17.000 I'm going to also update your file to show you're very considerate and thoughtful of me and the other employees.

00:04:23.000 Thank you again.

00:04:24.000 Wait, Kim? 0.93

00:04:26.000 Is this kosher?

00:04:27.000 Oh, I don't know. 0.98

00:04:28.000 I don't believe in that s**t. That s**t? 1.00

00:04:30.000 What kind of a cocktail thing are you talking about with this? 0.96

00:04:32.000 That is not just...AHH! AHH! AHH!

00:04:35.000 Cib! What the f***? 0.99

00:04:37.000 🎵 AHH! 0.99

00:04:42.000 Visit CBDistillery.com today and use promo code CROWDER for 20% off your purchase.

00:04:47.000 I'll be thinking about you during Yom Kippur when I'm repenting!

00:04:50.000 Let me tell you about that black thing. 1.00

00:04:52.000 That ain't no myth.

00:04:53.000 I was in between Lorenzo Bollier, and then there was another guy, Davey Johnson.

00:04:59.000 Literally, last name Johnson. 0.99

00:05:01.000 Even for black guys, we're like, what the f***? 0.99

00:05:03.000 He used to go in the shower last because he didn't want us to f***ing joke him up. 1.00

00:05:08.000 Imagine having a d*** so big you don't want people to pick on you for it. 0.99

00:05:12.000 Oh, woe is me. 1.00

00:05:13.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:05:14.000 Woe is you. 1.00

00:05:15.000 He's the OG.

00:05:16.000 He has his own show here in Mug Club, Monday through Thursday, 5 p.m.

00:05:19.000 Eastern.

00:05:19.000 Nick DiPaolo.

00:05:20.000 I'm going to follow.

00:05:47.000 What?

00:06:03.000 A quiet sip.

00:06:03.000 What?

00:06:06.000 Now you're judging my sip?

00:06:07.000 A little soft.

00:06:08.000 A little dainty.

00:06:09.000 A little soft, a little far away from the mic.

00:06:12.000 Yeah, whatever.

00:06:13.000 It'll be whatever sip I damn well please because it's fair.

00:06:17.000 Note the louder.

00:06:19.000 Yes.

00:06:22.000 I thought it was quite a professional. 0.79

00:06:25.000 Insubordinate, churlish.

00:06:26.000 I've got pad thai over here.

00:06:28.000 All right.

00:06:30.000 Hey, let's bring up the rundown.

00:06:31.000 We have Vivek Ramaswamy on the show today.

00:06:33.000 Yeah.

00:06:34.000 Because today is a concept episode.

00:06:36.000 And what do I mean by that?

00:06:37.000 No, it's not going to be just one of those episodes where we do flashbacks and montages because we're lazy.

00:06:42.000 It's an episode where we are going to discuss specifically free speech in the area of big

00:06:46.000 tech and now TikTok, because there is a bill that will be discussed today that very likely

00:06:51.000 will result not in the ban of TikTok, but in the, I guess I should say, subjecting TikTok

00:06:57.000 to the authority of the constitutional parameters of the United States.

00:07:01.000 So there are a lot of claims out there surrounding this bill and a lot of mistruths.

00:07:06.000 I understand kind of two sides of the as free speech absolutists.

00:07:10.000 However, freedom of speech ceases to exist if the platforms that claim to allow freedom of speech are subject to a communist foreign entity. 0.62

00:07:19.000 So, very different from what we've had to deal with in the past.

00:07:22.000 And we'll look at what the global threat to free speech looks like, what it looks like on different platforms, and specifically TikTok, what the alternatives are.

00:07:29.000 TikTok is very likely not going anywhere.

00:07:31.000 It just comes down to if it will remain under the control of the Communist Chinese Party.

00:07:36.000 So you can comment below before we bring Vivek on.

00:07:38.000 First off, if you're in chat right now, Mug Club, we'd love to see your questions.

00:07:42.000 We can try and ask them of Vivek because he seems to be against this bill.

00:07:47.000 I wouldn't say supportive of TikTok, but he has some arguments to make.

00:07:50.000 I want to hear what he has to say.

00:07:50.000 We like Vivek.

00:07:52.000 Do you think it's a slippery slope?

00:07:54.000 Do you think this bill is the right call?

00:07:56.000 And of course, because we will be speaking out against the demented circus monkeys at YouTube and Facebook, if at any point today you see this, You know, head on over to Rumble anyway, who may purchase TikTok because they actually do allow freedom of speech.

00:08:11.000 Yeah.

00:08:11.000 If you don't see us here on YouTube, as in very likely election night coverage, you know, it's just, it's a live show.

00:08:18.000 Weekdays, 10 a.m.

00:08:19.000 Eastern.

00:08:19.000 You want to know?

00:08:20.000 Watch the show.

00:08:20.000 Absolutely.

00:08:21.000 By the way, they are voting on that bill right now.

00:08:23.000 Really?

00:08:24.000 We'll be able to update you guys live here, I think, in about 10 minutes.

00:08:26.000 Well, I turned to CNN and it's about a new aid package to Ukraine.

00:08:29.000 Yeah.

00:08:30.000 Don't forget!

00:08:31.000 Trying to make you have an aneurysm, sorry.

00:08:32.000 You know what I say to that?

00:08:33.000 I would go on the floor and they would say, uh, uh, Representative Crowder, how do you vote?

00:08:37.000 I would go... Sir, that doesn't register as a vote, you have to hit a button.

00:08:42.000 I'm sorry, I meant... My lips aren't moist enough, I didn't... It's with the beard, because it creates, it's, there's no longer a seal.

00:08:50.000 Yeah, you gotta get the suction.

00:08:51.000 You gotta get a seal.

00:08:52.000 Yeah.

00:08:53.000 Can you do it?

00:08:54.000 Can someone do it with the two hands?

00:08:55.000 Because I knew a kid in school... I can't do that.

00:08:57.000 Can you do the two hands?

00:08:58.000 Let me see.

00:08:58.000 Let's see.

00:09:01.000 Noodles?

00:09:02.000 That sounded like Pete Buttigieg.

00:09:04.000 No, I think the beard makes it impossible.

00:09:06.000 It's actually how I sound when I fart, though, so it's pretty accurate. 0.89

00:09:09.000 Gabe William is watching the show going... In third chair, you know him, you love him.

00:09:17.000 When you hear this, you mostly thank him for his service, but he'll be at Wise Guys Comedy Club in Las Vegas Friday, April 5th, Saturday, April 6th.

00:09:23.000 Very funny guy, Josh Feierstein.

00:09:25.000 How are you?

00:09:26.000 I'm good.

00:09:26.000 Good to be here.

00:09:27.000 Good for the concept.

00:09:29.000 I am excited.

00:09:32.000 Don't oversell it, Josh.

00:09:34.000 Take a soft sip, Josh.

00:09:36.000 That's more of a slurp.

00:09:39.000 So this does sort of relate today, right, this bill.

00:09:42.000 And this bill is going to be voted today by whom?

00:09:47.000 Who's going to be voting on the bill today?

00:09:47.000 What do you mean?

00:09:48.000 Senate?

00:09:49.000 No, Congress.

00:09:50.000 Yes, Congress.

00:09:51.000 I wasn't a trick question.

00:09:52.000 You know this, Joe. 0.87

00:09:53.000 That was called a layup, dummy.

00:09:54.000 Well, I thought it was so simple that I'm like, he's playing 8-D chess.

00:09:57.000 What do I know?

00:09:58.000 I'm confused.

00:09:59.000 The American people?

00:10:00.000 I don't know!

00:10:01.000 I'm playing guess who?

00:10:04.000 Does your senator have glasses?

00:10:06.000 Guess who? 0.99

00:10:07.000 The lesbians. 1.00

00:10:08.000 The lesbian with the afro. 0.99

00:10:09.000 I want to play Woke Guess Who. 0.98

00:10:10.000 Yes.

00:10:10.000 It'd be pretty easy to lose.

00:10:12.000 I think we did do a sketch of Woke Guess Who.

00:10:14.000 Did we?

00:10:15.000 I don't know.

00:10:15.000 We've done so many things.

00:10:16.000 So, it sort of, it lends itself to this conversation at large, right?

00:10:20.000 Censorship.

00:10:20.000 Now, to be clear, we have been the target ourselves here, from YouTube, from Facebook, from Twitter.

00:10:25.000 And this isn't just people going out there wanting to be martyrs saying, no, they're shattered.

00:10:28.000 No, no, these have actually been Uh, sort of a matter of legal precedent and new rules that have been changed on YouTube.

00:10:35.000 Sorry, but not really sorry, because we're glad that's what helped foster an environment for places like Rumble.

00:10:40.000 So, the TikTok bill.

00:10:41.000 A lot of the argument surrounding this bill is focused on censorship and free speech.

00:10:46.000 Okay, I'm on the side of free speech, I'm anti-censorship.

00:10:50.000 However, that usually relates to the dynamic here in the United States government.

00:10:54.000 Uh, for example, Jen Psaki calling on Spotify.

00:10:57.000 Uh, Fly, as she calls it. 0.65

00:10:58.000 Spotify, that's what she said.

00:10:59.000 For example, Senator Hirono Nancy Pelosi calling for the banning of us from YouTube, right?

00:11:03.000 That's a problem, that's tyrannical when you have people who are beholden, who've taken an oath to the Constitution, who support censorship and free speech.

00:11:10.000 I know what you're gonna say, businesses can do whatever they want.

00:11:11.000 It's not a business doing whatever it wants when the government leans on the business.

00:11:15.000 Okay.

00:11:16.000 You now add a different dynamic.

00:11:19.000 A platform, an app, that is ubiquitous in the United States, largely with young people, okay?

00:11:25.000 A growing voting demographic that is controlled by a foreign communist entity with a vested interest in the destruction of the United States. 0.89

00:11:35.000 As a matter of fact, I don't know if we have this quote.

00:11:37.000 Someone from China, I don't remember which representative, came out and said this is an act of bullying from the United States against China.

00:11:44.000 Hold a second! 0.99

00:11:45.000 If you have nothing to do with it, why do you care?

00:11:48.000 I can't tell you that.

00:11:50.000 You're a stranger.

00:11:53.000 So let's walk you through history before we get to TikTok so you can understand where it is that we come from.

00:11:59.000 We have been censored here, demonetized, Vivek will be coming on very soon, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and of course, yes, yours truly has been completely banned from TikTok. 0.98

00:12:09.000 So while we're talking about free speech, we were banned from TikTok for saying that Xi Jinping has a small penis, which he does! 0.96

00:12:14.000 I've seen it. 0.99

00:12:15.000 Community note, true.

00:12:19.000 So let's first walk you back to this.

00:12:21.000 This was a big moment in our history.

00:12:23.000 We survived this because of you, Mug Club. 1.00

00:12:25.000 We make $0 off of YouTube.

00:12:27.000 We make, I think, like $49 a week off of Twitter, which, you know, spare no expense.

00:12:33.000 We are entirely funded by viewers like you.

00:12:35.000 We would have never been able to survive this.

00:12:37.000 This was known as the Vox Apocalypse.

00:12:39.000 What happened is people at Media Matters and then people in the mainstream media scene and they picked up a hit piece, a highlight reel of all the horrible things that we've said.

00:12:49.000 Just so you know, foreshadowing, guilty!

00:12:54.000 Boy, you want to have a surreal experience?

00:12:57.000 Have the Hodge twins call you from the airport hotel going, Man, we just saw Don Lemon on TV saying, Here's Steven Crowder!

00:13:05.000 And your dad was on there going, Queer! 1.00

00:13:07.000 Queer! 1.00

00:13:10.000 No, that was taken over years.

00:13:12.000 It was a montage, guys.

00:13:14.000 And then Don Lemon came back on camera. 0.99

00:13:15.000 He said, Disgusting.

00:13:19.000 So you're watching this going for jokes, and we were demonetized on YouTube.

00:13:24.000 They created a whole new policy because of a smear campaign, and actually Google's stock took a nosedive because as a result, YouTube demonetized thousands of channels, including historical documentary channels, because we didn't violate any guidelines, so they created new ones.

00:13:41.000 Here is actually just a brief memory trigger.

00:13:45.000 Controversial YouTuber named Steven Crowder.

00:13:47.000 It's very offensive.

00:13:49.000 Very offensive.

00:13:50.000 YouTube dragged its feet before taking any action against conservative commentator Steven Crowder.

00:13:56.000 We have a higher standard for monetization so then we did announce the monetization change that Steven Crowder was his monetization.

00:14:02.000 So was that in reaction?

00:14:03.000 Update on our continued review.

00:14:04.000 We have suspended this channel's monetization.

00:14:07.000 Okay.

00:14:08.000 Very offensive, Steven.

00:14:09.000 I love how they just refer to that as though that's just a benign thing.

00:14:13.000 It's like, yeah, we took away his ability to ever make a living on this channel, which would be millions and millions of dollars a year.

00:14:18.000 Right.

00:14:19.000 And by the way, they also wouldn't allow us back on YouTube until we removed the Socialism is for Figs shirt. 0.63

00:14:24.000 I know, that's weird.

00:14:25.000 At the Crowder Shop.

00:14:26.000 Which is completely off platform.

00:14:27.000 They created new rules for that, where then YouTube could demonetize or remove you for what is on platform.

00:14:32.000 So they changed their harassment rules.

00:14:35.000 After this took place, this had taken place, to remove more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube, sure, but then they created what is known in the industry, I'm sorry to say, is the Crowder Guideline, uh, the reduce borderline content and raise up authoritative voices.

00:14:50.000 Authoritative according to you.

00:14:51.000 That was new in response to that. 0.96

00:14:53.000 You screwed it for everyone! 0.88

00:14:55.000 I know, borderline content. 0.85

00:14:56.000 They said, this isn't a violation of policies.

00:14:59.000 It's borderline.

00:15:00.000 Sorry, guys. 0.97

00:15:01.000 That's why you all have to censor the word damn when you're on YouTube. 0.82

00:15:04.000 Isn't it crazy right now that we used to have the FCC, at least you had an R rating, but you knew what you were in for. 0.93

00:15:08.000 And if you went with someone who was 18 years old, like a cool babysitter, now everyone censors themselves.

00:15:13.000 You have these rough and dirty bad boy comics who everything is like...

00:15:17.000 That's a bad word.

00:15:17.000 It's like, oh, what happened to you being a rebel?

00:15:19.000 What happened to you saying, oh, we're the same all the time?

00:15:23.000 Everyone censors themselves.

00:15:24.000 It's not a few suits at the FCC.

00:15:27.000 It's collectively society at large has forced everyone to turn everything on YouTube and 0.99

00:15:33.000 Facebook and Instagram to be G-rated shit. 0.99

00:15:37.000 And by the way, not good G, not like Pixar, just boring G. 1.00

00:15:42.000 Not like G-spot. 0.94

00:15:44.000 Nobody's getting pleasure from this, G. Well, G. Spock.

00:15:44.000 No.

00:15:47.000 The man was a lover, not a fighter.

00:15:48.000 More like G. Williker.

00:15:49.000 They want you to be like Miss Rachel.

00:15:50.000 They want this show to be like Miss Rachel.

00:15:52.000 Yes.

00:15:52.000 That's what they want.

00:15:53.000 Where it costs four dimes to make and a hairnet and you're worth nine billion dollars.

00:15:58.000 So before we get to TikTok, Bill, then this also happened to us with Facebook.

00:16:01.000 So Facebook, this is actually how I met my half-Asian lawyer, Bill Richman.

00:16:05.000 There was a Gizmodo article that named pages that were specifically selected by hand to censor and remove from Facebook.

00:16:11.000 Keep in mind, this is how I made A living, largely, at that point in time.

00:16:15.000 Mug Club had not grown to the level that it was now.

00:16:17.000 So we made a lot of our revenue off of the website, because we would have many, many millions of people read the articles.

00:16:23.000 And that traffic came from Facebook and auxiliary sources.

00:16:26.000 So there was an article that said, hey, we decided to throttle Ted Cruz Pack for President, Breitbart.com, the Chris Kyle Foundation, And me!

00:16:37.000 One of these things is not like the other, but at that point in time, it was the top page on Facebook.

00:16:42.000 And so they specifically chose it to throttle it, so that people who liked the page could not see the content of the page that they liked.

00:16:49.000 We also ran into this on Twitter, where we were suspended for hateful conduct, despite the fact that there was no hateful conduct.

00:16:55.000 It was about gender fluidity, which is not a thing you can go screw yourselves if you think it is. 0.95

00:17:00.000 You can go screw the other half of you, depending on which half you are that day. 0.58

00:17:05.000 And if you've kept it in a jar.

00:17:07.000 Yes.

00:17:07.000 Where else are you going to keep it?

00:17:10.000 And again, we give this to you because this is the reason for Mug Club. 0.95

00:17:14.000 You guys can go to lightoffcredit.com.

00:17:16.000 You can join it for a $9 mug list.

00:17:18.000 There's still the promo code SCOTUS, $10 off.

00:17:23.000 PBS, we are funded by viewers like you.

00:17:24.000 It's why we're able to have the YouTube dump button, why we are able to not care if we're banned from TikTok, demonetized on YouTube.

00:17:30.000 That's what you have to do.

00:17:31.000 You have to uncouple yourselves from these social media ghettos.

00:17:34.000 So I say that so that hopefully you understand we have a long and storied history in fighting back against big tech and censorship.

00:17:39.000 That's the reason that this exists.

00:17:41.000 You are the reason that it exists.

00:17:43.000 That is not the case with TikTok and this bill that is happening today.

00:17:48.000 This is about a foreign entity, half of the employees of whom have been banged by Eric Swalwell in control of American speech. 0.92

00:18:02.000 Imagine that!

00:18:03.000 The Chinese Communist Party in control or altering, alter-algorithming American speech. 0.96

00:18:13.000 They are not subject to the Constitution, neither are your representatives.

00:18:16.000 That is the complication in today's story, wrinkle, bill.

00:18:21.000 And also, I need to let you know, today's show is brought to you by our sponsor, Woke Word of the Day.

00:18:26.000 With louder, with crowder, learning is fun.

00:18:30.000 Hi, I'm Josh Feierstein.

00:18:32.000 And I'm PJ.

00:18:35.000 And we're here to tell you about today's Woke Word of the Day, which is...

00:18:40.000 Get the logo.

00:18:43.000 Today's word is marginalization.

00:18:48.000 That's right, marginalization.

00:18:50.000 Marginalization is like a more spreadable substitute for butter that some people have argued is a more healthy replacement.

00:18:59.000 What?

00:19:00.000 Learning is fun.

00:19:03.000 Spare no expense.

00:19:04.000 You have an update there, Gerald.

00:19:05.000 Yeah, we do have an update.

00:19:06.000 This bill did pass.

00:19:07.000 The TikTok ban bill is kind of what people are calling it online.

00:19:11.000 197 to 29, I believe, was the final vote, with one person voting present.

00:19:16.000 It looks like 197 to 30.

00:19:17.000 Ah, it changed a little bit.

00:19:18.000 This is just the House, so the Senate now has to act on this or do something they can act in kind of a lot of

00:19:27.000 different ways to either change this bill, approve it as is, and then we

00:19:30.000 go to the president. So again, Little School House, rock for you. This is not the

00:19:33.000 bill being done.

00:19:33.000 I hope I become a law or ask Wal-Mart to make a Chinese spy.

00:19:38.000 He's already done that. I don't think he needs laws to do that.

00:19:42.000 And apparently the time doesn't mean anything.

00:19:44.000 Lane just sent in that it did get two-thirds.

00:19:47.000 So apparently a bunch of people voted after.

00:19:50.000 Thank you!

00:19:50.000 It voted.

00:19:52.000 And we're going to look at the no's on that.

00:19:52.000 It passed by a lot more.

00:19:54.000 So at that last shot it was 46 no's.

00:19:56.000 Let's see if anybody else votes no.

00:19:58.000 We won't go into that.

00:19:59.000 We have a wonderful sponsor, CBD, sorry, CB Distillery.

00:19:59.000 Very rare sponsors.

00:20:03.000 I always want to say CBD Distillery.

00:20:05.000 If you use a promo code, Crowder, 20% off.

00:20:07.000 Everything there is lab tested.

00:20:08.000 You can go see their certificates of analysis.

00:20:11.000 We don't have any sponsors as far as supplements, aside from these guys, because everything is transparent.

00:20:15.000 And I will tell you, it's done, Mir.

00:20:17.000 I used it after my surgery.

00:20:19.000 Yeah.

00:20:20.000 I used it after my surgery.

00:20:21.000 Really did help with the pain.

00:20:22.000 Of course, if you use the full spectrum, you will test positive.

00:20:26.000 As though you were at a Cheech and Chong rally, so just be careful.

00:20:28.000 Yes!

00:20:28.000 But you will not be high.

00:20:30.000 No, it's 0.3%.

00:20:30.000 Right.

00:20:31.000 What a rally that would be.

00:20:33.000 It would be a rally.

00:20:34.000 They're all just CB Distillery customers.

00:20:37.000 We didn't smoke, man!

00:20:38.000 The rally's not here, man!

00:20:39.000 So CB Distillery, if you're out there, read the science.

00:20:42.000 They have it up there on their website.

00:20:43.000 It's one of the few things that actually makes a difference.

00:20:46.000 One of the few supplements that actually works!

00:20:47.000 All right.

00:20:49.000 Their stick is awesome.

00:20:49.000 I wish I could put it on my shoulder.

00:20:50.000 I don't know what this means.

00:20:51.000 Real quick, bring this up.

00:20:52.000 Judge dismisses some counts against Trump in Georgia case.

00:20:55.000 They say it's breaking news, but that doesn't mean it's breaking news.

00:20:57.000 I'm interested to see what that is.

00:20:59.000 So let me research.

00:21:01.000 Let us know what that is.

00:21:02.000 Yes.

00:21:03.000 Just out of curiosity.

00:21:04.000 Did we get the Eric Swalwell clip, by the way?

00:21:06.000 Yeah.

00:21:06.000 Okay, good.

00:21:07.000 So let's move on here to TikTok.

00:21:09.000 We talked about freedom of speech.

00:21:10.000 We've talked about the other platforms.

00:21:13.000 TikTok, this bill that just passed.

00:21:14.000 Okay, we're going to have a vape on because the vape was opposed to this bill.

00:21:19.000 This is important because this is going to be ongoing now and you're going to see more wrinkles kind of highlighted.

00:21:25.000 This vote had taken place, well just now, we know how they voted.

00:21:29.000 Some people were making the argument That like Facebook, like Twitter before it was purchased by X, like YouTube, Google, of which there can be no doubt, they were attacking free speech, that the TikTok bill would be an attack on free speech.

00:21:44.000 Here's the claim.

00:21:45.000 Huge news!

00:21:45.000 I will be voting no on the bill to ban TikTok that hurts the free speech of influencers, creators, activists, and organizers.

00:21:54.000 This is a platform used by both the left and the right to challenge the political establishment for justice and cleaning up politics.

00:22:02.000 If you want to protect people's data, pass an Internet Bill of Rights to do that.

00:22:07.000 Don't ban the political speech of 170 million Americans.

00:22:10.000 I'm a no.

00:22:12.000 And it's funny because they will say that this is a Trojan horse.

00:22:15.000 Look at the Internet Bill of Rights.

00:22:17.000 There's a Trojan horse.

00:22:20.000 It's not even a Trojan horse, it's just a condom penetrating freedom.

00:22:25.000 So Eric Swalwell, everyone's favorite, bang the Chinese spy, came out defending the Communist Chinese Party owned app under the guise of, I know Eric Swalwell, you're gonna say this doesn't make sense, I'll give some context after, the guise of free enterprise.

00:22:38.000 Everyone is ready to vote for this.

00:22:41.000 In fact, Eric Swalwell said earlier on our air that he is planning to vote against it.

00:22:46.000 Here's why.

00:22:47.000 I want to find ways, you know, to better, you know, restrict the use of data without, you know, taking away a platform that so many small businesses rely upon and so many young people, you know, use to communicate.

00:23:00.000 And this would do nothing to look at other social media companies and, you know, and their data.

00:23:04.000 So I, I just, I don't like bans on speech.

00:23:07.000 You know, we really rely on young voters who don't know a whole lot and illegal immigrants who don't speak the language, so we don't want anything that might negatively affect that.

00:23:15.000 This is the same guy, keep in mind, who said this about social media in 2021.

00:23:18.000 It shows that we're not doing enough.

00:23:21.000 I couldn't agree with the Senator more that if we were to just go after solely Facebook, that is not going to solve the problem.

00:23:27.000 We need something much larger.

00:23:29.000 I would call it a digital convention to rewrite and re-examine Privacy, data security, algorithm laws to make sure that we can protect consumers and they can still be connected in this new digital environment.

00:23:44.000 So something like the Internet Bill of Rights, maybe?

00:23:46.000 Protecting user data from the CCP!

00:23:49.000 Maybe start with them!

00:23:52.000 How about protecting them from your seed?

00:23:54.000 Oh my gosh.

00:23:58.000 How is this guy still allowed to be represented?

00:24:00.000 Can someone, can someone comment below?

00:24:02.000 Is there something I'm missing?

00:24:03.000 Who votes for this guy? 0.97

00:24:04.000 To me, you bang one Chinese spy, that's it. 0.96

00:24:08.000 You don't get a grace Chinese spy bang.

00:24:11.000 No.

00:24:11.000 No?

00:24:12.000 You sure?

00:24:12.000 How many foreign assets does this party have in our Congress?

00:24:16.000 Even though the U.S.

00:24:17.000 So, there also by the way again some of the Chinese actors were able to get, here's the

00:24:21.000 China foreign ministry said, even though the US has not found evidence of how TikTok endanger

00:24:27.000 its national security, it has never stopped going after TikTok, resorting to act of bullying.

00:24:32.000 Why do you care?

00:24:33.000 Why do you care?

00:24:34.000 If this has nothing to do with China, how is it bullying China?

00:24:37.000 Then China, just because, you know, they're looking out for you, right, the people who put Uyghurs in concentration camps and they arrest people if they have the wrong Bible, says, the U.S.

00:24:43.000 cracked down on TikTok Trimpole upon its First Amendment rights!

00:24:48.000 Did we?

00:24:49.000 Did we Trimpole?

00:24:52.000 How do you know what a First Amendment right is?

00:24:54.000 You don't have it, China. 1.00

00:24:56.000 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

00:24:58.000 Don't interrupt when propaganda!

00:25:03.000 Now, some of the arguments are coming from right-wing figures.

00:25:06.000 First, let me give you something very clear.

00:25:09.000 This bill is very narrow.

00:25:10.000 I will tell you exactly what it encompasses.

00:25:12.000 But first, here's a claim that people are making.

00:25:15.000 And I would love to hear the vague make the case here.

00:25:18.000 Maybe there's something I'm missing.

00:25:19.000 They're trying to say that this bill is a Trojan horse, right?

00:25:21.000 That it allows more unfettered authority, which would be absolutely a problem.

00:25:25.000 Okay?

00:25:26.000 So this comes from Massey, Thomas Massey.

00:25:28.000 He said, uh, the so-called TikTok ban is a Trojan horse.

00:25:31.000 The president will be given the power to ban websites, not just apps.

00:25:36.000 That's not true, to be clear.

00:25:38.000 Uh, let's go to the truth.

00:25:40.000 Yes, thank you.

00:25:41.000 The bill applies to... it's a very, very narrow scope.

00:25:45.000 All references are available at ladothcratter.com.

00:25:47.000 Okay?

00:25:47.000 Link in the description.

00:25:48.000 It applies to four countries.

00:25:50.000 Okay, that are listed.

00:25:51.000 North Korea, Russia, China, Iran.

00:25:54.000 And it applies to companies that have ownership or control, right, that would be exhibited by these countries, that would be exerted by these countries, influence.

00:26:05.000 So the ownership must meet this criteria.

00:26:07.000 So those four countries, and the ownership has to be based on being headquartered or domiciled in said country, having their principal place of business in said country, or be organized under the laws of one of said countries, which are foreign adversaries,

00:26:23.000 and the ownership stake must be at least 20 percent, again by one of said listed four

00:26:28.000 countries. This would not apply to websites here in the United States. This would not apply to

00:26:32.000 businesses that have distribution centers, for example, in China or in Iran. Yes.

00:26:38.000 No, this isn't going to- I'm sure they have Sunglass Hut.

00:26:40.000 I was a little confused by Matthew's thing.

00:26:43.000 Do you think that TikTok does not have a web application and an app for phones as well?

00:26:47.000 Yes, it says the word websites in there because it's being very broad in what it defines so somebody can't just skirt the rules and go, well, it's not an app.

00:26:54.000 It's a website.

00:26:54.000 We still collect data, right?

00:26:56.000 So, it was very, very, very clear though, later on, what is a foreign controlled company?

00:27:00.000 There you go.

00:27:01.000 From these four countries, very, very specific.

00:27:04.000 These four countries, and this is what would constitute control. 0.98

00:27:07.000 In other words, if it's a company that's based in Canada, and they have 50% ownership, as much as Trudeau's a dick, it wouldn't count. 0.98

00:27:16.000 We don't like Canada. 0.99

00:27:17.000 Even though I think we're getting pretty close considering that it's a communist hellhole.

00:27:20.000 So I would like to ask you, knowing that that is what this bill entails, do you think it's appropriate?

00:27:26.000 Do you think it's appropriate for the United States government?

00:27:28.000 Is it the legitimate purview of the United States government?

00:27:32.000 Those who are sworn to the Constitution to say, yeah, foreign adversaries, namely these four countries, if it is owned, operated, or headquartered by these four countries or affiliates therein, people who are affiliate-like companies who have Communist Chinese Party has direct ownership in, then you cannot operate in the United States because we don't know what your algorithms do and we know that you want to subvert our constitutional republic.

00:27:55.000 Remember Russian interference?

00:27:56.000 Remember that?

00:27:58.000 You don't think there's going to be Chinese interference if they can determine exactly what you see and exactly what anyone under the age of 25 sees?

00:28:05.000 So they claim to, here's another claim, that the bill threatens freedom of speech.

00:28:05.000 Okay.

00:28:10.000 This is from TikTok.

00:28:13.000 Should I do the accent again?

00:28:14.000 I might as well.

00:28:14.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:28:15.000 Every time.

00:28:15.000 Oh, please, do it.

00:28:17.000 This registration will trample.

00:28:19.000 No, no, no, no, no, no.

00:28:20.000 Trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans deprived 5 million small business of a platform they rely on to grow and create job.

00:28:30.000 I like how you didn't do the plural.

00:28:32.000 You mispronounced slaves.

00:28:33.000 Sorry, that's your country.

00:28:38.000 I love how they care about freedom of speech and job growth.

00:28:41.000 Well, they're sending all their people here, so that makes sure they have good jobs when they get here. 0.91

00:28:45.000 No, no, no!

00:28:46.000 They're going to grow weed farm! 0.96

00:28:50.000 All your weed belong to me! 1.00

00:28:51.000 You smoke, you get killed! 1.00

00:28:53.000 Send bullet to your family! 1.00

00:28:58.000 Shoot him, he go, ah! 1.00

00:28:58.000 Freedom of speech! 1.00

00:29:00.000 He speak!

00:29:03.000 He say, please no!

00:29:04.000 He say, please no! 0.96

00:29:05.000 I say, you speak, now I shoot!

00:29:08.000 Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to speak.

00:29:10.000 No consequence. 1.00

00:29:10.000 Consequence, I shoot you. 1.00

00:29:11.000 I kill you. 1.00

00:29:13.000 Who gives a rat's ass what China wants? 1.00

00:29:16.000 I want the opposite of what they want in general. 0.99

00:29:18.000 Here's the truth, okay?

00:29:20.000 This bill is not about free speech at all.

00:29:22.000 Alright.

00:29:23.000 For this premise to work, you would have to believe that TikTok, the CCP byte dance, that they are champions of free speech.

00:29:31.000 Well, I'll get to some of the data here, but we know that TikTok doesn't care about freedom of speech.

00:29:36.000 Why?

00:29:37.000 Because we spoke freely in ways that would of course be in line with the First Amendment, Constitution, freedom of speech rights in the United States, and TikTok banned us quickly.

00:29:48.000 I am going to close my TikTok.

00:29:54.000 The 9-dash line isn't real.

00:29:58.000 Mao's great leap forward led to the death of 45 million Chinese citizens.

00:30:01.000 Taiwan is in fact a real country and not a part of communist China.

00:30:06.000 From 1279 to 1368, China was ruled by the Mongols. 0.96

00:30:10.000 to die!

00:30:11.000 From 1279 to 1368, China was ruled by the Mongols. 0.76

00:30:16.000 Tick tock. 0.95

00:30:18.000 During World War II, Mao's commies hid away in the hills like the cowards that they were 0.93

00:30:22.000 while Chinese nationalists fought the Japanese. 0.64

00:30:25.000 Also, Mao's commies killed millions of people during the Cultural Revolution.

00:30:30.000 Taiwan's GDP per capita is nearly three times larger than China's because they're better than you. 1.00

00:30:38.000 Communist Chinese Party, just to be clear, not the citizens of China.

00:30:41.000 By Communist Chinese Party, I mean owners of TikTok.

00:30:42.000 By the way, you know what to...

00:30:53.000 Eric Schwabl calls that dirty talk.

00:30:57.000 I like it when you put me in my place!

00:30:59.000 We really had to come up with things like, gosh, we got to say this a little bit more.

00:31:02.000 And you put the outfit on and we added the music.

00:31:04.000 Exactly.

00:31:06.000 Nowhere in the United States would that be impermissible.

00:31:08.000 It was banned.

00:31:08.000 No.

00:31:09.000 This has been banned.

00:31:10.000 So whoever maybe gets control of TikTok, at least push for us to be reinstated.

00:31:14.000 There you go.

00:31:14.000 That's not even hate speech.

00:31:16.000 It's just hate speech against the Communist Chinese Party.

00:31:18.000 We were very clear to delineate.

00:31:20.000 They removed us later in the dead of night.

00:31:22.000 They didn't remove us when we did the campaign.

00:31:23.000 They removed us about two months later once it had died down.

00:31:26.000 And here's another truth.

00:31:28.000 The First Amendment does not protect espionage from foreign adversaries, enemy states.

00:31:35.000 We already have laws, for example, that ban foreign ownership of broadcasting here in the United States.

00:31:41.000 Right?

00:31:41.000 We have laws that are very ineffective, and if you go and watch our piece on marijuana grow farms in Oklahoma, but there are laws that exist to prevent China, for example, from purchasing farmland.

00:31:51.000 I believe they should be able to purchase zero farmland.

00:31:54.000 Zero land at all.

00:31:55.000 Zero land at all. 0.96

00:31:56.000 But I also understand the logic, because if crap goes down, we just say, eh, it's our land now. 0.94

00:32:01.000 Eh, it's a wasted investment. 0.99

00:32:02.000 Oh no!

00:32:03.000 What happened to my dividend?

00:32:09.000 A lot of people don't understand this.

00:32:10.000 This is like during the Cold War saying that, you know, Russia could basically buy some TV stations and do propaganda in the United States.

00:32:16.000 An actual war with Hitler saying, yeah, let's let Goebbels propaganda that you're playing in Germany.

00:32:20.000 Let's let that be broadcast in the United States.

00:32:22.000 Like, of course we're not going to do that.

00:32:24.000 And all they're doing is saying you have to divest.

00:32:26.000 You have to have a divestiture where you reduce that 20% down to something else.

00:32:30.000 You have to meet these standards after 180 days.

00:32:32.000 There's a process.

00:32:33.000 The president just doesn't do it in the dark of night.

00:32:35.000 He has to notify Congress 30 days ahead of making that declaration, and then you can appeal it.

00:32:39.000 Like, it is not something that the president goes, yeah, we don't like this guy.

00:32:42.000 There you go.

00:32:43.000 There is a whole process.

00:32:43.000 Right?

00:32:44.000 Do you think if Mangala was alive today, he'd become a Pimple Popper MD?

00:32:49.000 I like Dr. Pimple Popper.

00:32:50.000 It's kind of fun.

00:32:51.000 Yeah, it's a lot.

00:32:52.000 I love it, dude.

00:32:53.000 I get hours I can go watching that stuff.

00:32:56.000 Well, that's weird.

00:32:57.000 A little bit is fine.

00:32:58.000 I don't touch myself or anything.

00:32:59.000 No, but one time.

00:33:01.000 Vivek's coming on soon.

00:33:02.000 Alright, Vivek's coming on soon.

00:33:03.000 Well, come on, he doesn't care.

00:33:04.000 That guy's never had a zit in his life.

00:33:06.000 Have you seen his porcelain doll skin?

00:33:07.000 It's perfect, dude.

00:33:07.000 That skin is perfect.

00:33:08.000 I saw him in person and I just wanted to be like, uhhhh.

00:33:11.000 Whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:33:13.000 Not like that.

00:33:14.000 No, not like that.

00:33:16.000 I can lift your skin, baby! 1.00

00:33:18.000 That's why I said that.

00:33:20.000 I bet it tastes like sugar.

00:33:21.000 Brown sugar.

00:33:23.000 Like caramel, yeah.

00:33:24.000 Maple syrup.

00:33:26.000 Oh, yes.

00:33:27.000 I'm glad he's not hearing this.

00:33:28.000 Yeah, it's okay.

00:33:29.000 Are you sure he's not?

00:33:30.000 I think he doesn't know that he has perfect skin.

00:33:32.000 I think we lost the feed, actually.

00:33:34.000 Oh, what an insult!

00:33:36.000 Oh, you have such great skin!

00:33:38.000 Oh! 0.60

00:33:40.000 Superior genetics! 0.70

00:33:42.000 He has good skin and he doesn't look like he has an ounce of fat on him, ever.

00:33:46.000 Alright, here's another claim, okay?

00:33:49.000 That the Chinese don't even have that much influence over TikTok here in the USA.

00:33:53.000 Here's Rand Paul, who I really like, by the way.

00:33:54.000 He's a friend of the show.

00:33:56.000 I agree with him probably on more than almost any other representative, even though he is grading.

00:34:02.000 He said, reactionaries who want to ban TikTok claim the data can't be secured because of the algorithm is in China.

00:34:11.000 Not true.

00:34:13.000 The truth is the algorithm runs in the United States in Oracle Cloud with their review of the code not in China.

00:34:21.000 Maybe we should examine the facts before committing violations of the First and Fifth Amendments.

00:34:26.000 Here's the truth.

00:34:27.000 The TikTok data is not secure in the United States.

00:34:31.000 He's referring to this Project Texas where Oracle stores data and then walls it off from China.

00:34:37.000 However, there was a report from the Wall Street Journal that references are made publicly available.

00:34:40.000 Here's a quote.

00:34:41.000 The Project Texas workers soon found a mountain, keyword mountain, of code from ByteDance waiting for them to verify each morning.

00:34:50.000 Under pressure to work quickly, employees found the task to be impossible without more personnel, according to the people familiar with the unit.

00:34:57.000 TikTok said, Oracle is monitoring all the data leaving Project Texas, but Oracle doesn't monitor- oh, it's TikTok, so.

00:35:06.000 Oracle doesn't monitor the data employees share with each other over TikTok's internal messaging tools.

00:35:12.000 Your Google Chat belong to me!

00:35:16.000 Slack?

00:35:17.000 My Slack!

00:35:20.000 And here's the truth too.

00:35:21.000 The CCP, the Communist Chinese Party, Has a golden share in ByteDance.

00:35:25.000 Okay, let me just read this for you.

00:35:27.000 Golden shares have become a useful tool to keep companies like these in line with party objectives without the need for the state being a major stakeholder.

00:35:34.000 Now, this is something that people will bring up, just to be clear, if there's a potential conflict of interest.

00:35:39.000 I'm not saying that there is, but this is relevant.

00:35:41.000 Rand Paul, Thomas Massey have received very large swathes of funding from Jeff Yass, who owns a $33 billion stake in ByteDance.

00:35:51.000 Now, it doesn't mean that you can't—and this is a chicken or the egg, by the way.

00:35:54.000 Any biologist will tell you that—chicken?

00:35:56.000 I'll get into that another day.

00:35:59.000 Because maybe they have a stake.

00:36:01.000 Someone has a stake in ByteDance who is saying, hey, there's a way to improve this, and we believe that through more effective legislation, you can improve the problems that exist within this company.

00:36:08.000 It's not necessarily mean they're trying to get a leg up for their company, just to be clear.

00:36:12.000 I just think it's relevant, it's worth noting.

00:36:14.000 Another vocal opponent of the bill that just was voted on, sorry I don't want to say passed because Schoolhouse rocked this, but is Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:36:24.000 President Trump just came out against a legislative measure that would require the owner of TikTok to divest it.

00:36:32.000 It's currently a Chinese owner, a company called ByteDance, or else that it would be banned in the United States.

00:36:36.000 President Trump just came out opposing that.

00:36:39.000 I think that's the right decision, actually, of President Trump to oppose that legislation because it doesn't make any sense.

00:36:44.000 This point about the divestment relates to a different concern.

00:36:48.000 The use and provision of data, U.S.

00:36:50.000 user data, potentially to the Chinese Communist Party.

00:36:53.000 And I think that is a major concern.

00:36:55.000 But here's the rub.

00:36:57.000 It isn't limited to just TikTok or even Chinese-owned companies in the U.S.

00:37:02.000 It expands to include even so-called U.S.

00:37:05.000 companies that are still beholden to the CCP because they do business in China.

00:37:10.000 So we have to ask ourselves the why.

00:37:11.000 And if the real concern we have, and I think it is a real concern we ought to have, Look at his skin! 1.00

00:37:16.000 It's like a Maybelline commercial.

00:37:17.000 and user data to the Chinese Communist Party, that's what we should be legislating against.

00:37:22.000 Ban US companies from providing US user data to China.

00:37:27.000 I think it's a sensible measure regardless of the company.

00:37:30.000 Look at his skin. 1.00

00:37:31.000 It's like a Maybelline commercial.

00:37:32.000 If he was going to be offended, if he was going to be offended at our compliments of

00:37:37.000 his skin, I have ginger white guy skin.

00:37:40.000 You have any idea what happens when I get in the sun?

00:37:42.000 It's like a gremlin that ate after midnight.

00:37:45.000 Good tan lines, though.

00:37:46.000 Yeah, I do.

00:37:46.000 Well, I do the highline bikini.

00:37:48.000 By the way, do you ever sleep on your shoulder?

00:37:50.000 Can you guys hear this?

00:37:51.000 Look, can you guys?

00:37:52.000 Oh, I want to put this right up.

00:37:53.000 Bring up my mic there.

00:37:54.000 Can you guys hear my shoulder?

00:37:56.000 Yeah.

00:37:57.000 Yeah.

00:37:59.000 Do we have a baby crying sound?

00:38:00.000 I mean, I want to keep doing it.

00:38:01.000 I popped it out of my sleep.

00:38:06.000 Hopefully Vivek has some, you know, because there's Ayurvedic herbs.

00:38:08.000 I don't know, like Oshawa Gondar or something.

00:38:15.000 So we're going to bring him on here in a second, but I do think, look, and I want Vivek to

00:38:20.000 explain, because he's very sharp.

00:38:22.000 I'm sure that he has some reasoning here that, not that we've missed, but I would like to

00:38:27.000 have a productive conversation with someone who I believe is an honest actor.

00:38:30.000 In February of 2023, Vivek did tweet out, and yes, I'm very open to banning TikTok outright.

00:38:37.000 In the meantime, we sit on our hands and do nothing as kids get addicted to it like it's digital fentanyl.

00:38:43.000 Now, to be clear, he said, I am very open to.

00:38:46.000 He didn't say I want to ban it outright, right?

00:38:49.000 He did make sure to couch his words very carefully, but I would like to understand why his position has, according to some people, seemingly changed or what his position has always been, where it is right now.

00:39:00.000 He's a friend of the show.

00:39:01.000 Here to clarify this and more is Vivek Ramaswamy, Flying V.

00:39:07.000 Flying V! 0.76

00:39:09.000 Come on! Flying V! 1.00

00:39:13.000 Alright.

00:39:17.000 Mr. Ramaswamy, how are you, sir?

00:39:20.000 Doing well.

00:39:20.000 How you doing, man?

00:39:21.000 Good.

00:39:21.000 Did you hear us for five minutes talking about your porcelain doll skin?

00:39:25.000 I heard the tail end of that and I was wondering what the heck is going on.

00:39:29.000 Well, we're all... Would I be offended at it?

00:39:31.000 I'm not offended.

00:39:32.000 No, we're all aging white guys with crow's feet and when you left we're like, does that guy have a wrinkle?

00:39:38.000 We're like, I don't know if it's just...

00:39:41.000 The presidential thing didn't work out.

00:39:42.000 You know, there's always the Mach 3 commercials.

00:39:45.000 Yes, exactly.

00:39:47.000 Maybe you can get Mach 6.

00:39:49.000 More razors!

00:39:50.000 Let's give it six razors. 1.00

00:39:51.000 Okay, so Vivek, let me ask you this, because some people are characterizing this as flipping, meaning that you called it digital fentanyl, said you were open to an outright ban, and now you're saying, you know, don't pass the bill.

00:40:02.000 The bill was just voted on, I'm sure you know, overwhelmingly.

00:40:06.000 Okay, so clarify what your position was there and where it is now, what your opposition is to this, please.

00:40:14.000 So first of all, TikTok has major problems.

00:40:16.000 I have probably been, if you rewind even a few years, even before I was running for president, at the leading edge of pointing out a lot of the issues with addictive social media across the board, particularly with TikTok.

00:40:27.000 And a position that I've adopted since the start of the campaign, I think I said this on day one, And I maintain today is that I think there is a reasonable case to be made for addictive social media, algorithmically powered addictive social media, to be banned outright in kids under the age of 16.

00:40:44.000 That would include TikTok, it would also include other platforms.

00:40:47.000 But here's where I land.

00:40:49.000 I prefer to, all else equal, when we have a choice, ban the bad behavior, not the individual actor or the individual company, because that sets a terrible precedent.

00:40:59.000 So there's three major issues with TikTok, as I see it, right?

00:41:02.000 I'm not some sort of TikTok fan apologist.

00:41:05.000 To the contrary, we've got to see the problem with clear eyes.

00:41:07.000 Problem number one is addictive tendencies in kids.

00:41:10.000 Problem number two is forced data transfers or the potential of forced data transfers to the Chinese Communist Party.

00:41:17.000 And problem number three is the people who run that platform, which could be the CCP, engaging in system-wide persuasion control, effectively tilting the levers of what people do or don't see.

00:41:28.000 Sure.

00:41:29.000 Each of those are three separate problems.

00:41:31.000 Here's my issue with this bill.

00:41:33.000 Is that this neither addresses those concerns, any of them, and I can explain why, while also massively expanding the authority of the federal government, particularly the executive branch, particularly President Biden right now, to be able to censor the speech of political opponents in ways that have nothing to do with TikTok.

00:41:51.000 So the bill is both over-inclusive while also failing to do the thing that it supposedly is purporting to do.

00:41:59.000 And the reason why is anytime you're in the business of creating a bill to go after one company, one actor, what our founding fathers referred to as bills of attender, this is a constitutional prohibition.

00:42:09.000 Anyway, I think there's a good chance this will get challenged in the courts and thrown out for this very reason.

00:42:13.000 That's a formula for abuse. 1.00

00:42:15.000 And so I can go into detail on each of those points.

00:42:19.000 You listed three points, right?

00:42:21.000 I believe three points.

00:42:23.000 Number two, I just want to make sure this right number two was that it is overly expansive.

00:42:26.000 Do I have that right?

00:42:28.000 I would say just to go clear, it doesn't matter what order we go in.

00:42:31.000 One is addictive tendencies in kids.

00:42:32.000 Two is forced data transfers to the CCP of U.S.

00:42:36.000 user information.

00:42:37.000 And number three is broad-scale persuasion, using the tool as a persuasive tool to ideologically shift the U.S.

00:42:44.000 dialogue or discourse in a way that might favor a foreign adversary rather than the United States.

00:42:49.000 So those are three independent concerns, which I think are serious.

00:42:51.000 Yes, no, and I agree with you.

00:42:53.000 But here's the thing, this bill does address number two and three.

00:42:54.000 It doesn't address the addictive tendencies.

00:42:56.000 It does address two and three.

00:42:57.000 And especially people, like, I do think, and here's the thing, sitting around with Section 230 and having been banned, you know, demonetized on YouTube, banned from TikTok for literally making fun of Xi Jinping.

00:43:07.000 That's why we were banned from TikTok repeatedly.

00:43:10.000 This is addressed in a way that says, OK, look, I didn't know that.

00:43:12.000 That's interesting.

00:43:12.000 Yes.

00:43:13.000 It's disgusting. 0.99

00:43:13.000 It's disgusting when China does it. 0.99

00:43:15.000 It's disgusting when we do similar things in the United States.

00:43:17.000 I don't know why you're demonetized on YouTube, but I suspect it could relate to speech that the U.S.

00:43:22.000 jokes towards Xi Jinping. I think he's earned it, but you know, that's just me, Mr. Old-Fashioned.

00:43:26.000 It's disgusting. It's disgusting when China does it. It's disgusting when we do similar 1.00

00:43:29.000 things in the United States. I don't know why you're demonetized on YouTube, but I suspect

00:43:32.000 it could relate to speech that the U.S. government finds offensive, and it's bad no matter who does.

00:43:35.000 Well, when senators like Hirono and Pelosi are out there saying Mr. Crowder needs to be banned,

00:43:39.000 and they say he hasn't violated policy, so we'll just remove millions of dollars.

00:43:42.000 However, nothing ever happens with those.

00:43:44.000 This is a rare instance where something can happen and I would actually argue that the reason this can get bipartisan support is because of the specificity.

00:43:51.000 Because of the specificity that says, for foreign adversaries, 20% ownership, you know, if the data transfers occur, if they are headquartered or domiciled in these other countries, it is more specific than, for example, some of the left's legislation of hate speech or misinformation.

00:44:08.000 So it's one of the rare instances, you know, I don't believe in common ground based on a lie.

00:44:12.000 If I may, I may push back on that for just a second.

00:44:14.000 Sure.

00:44:15.000 So this is an issue near and dear to my heart.

00:44:16.000 I wrote about this in Woke Inc.

00:44:18.000 It is a myth that Chinese ownership of the company is the only source of leverage that China has in order to decide how, say, data is or is not transferred to the behavior of companies.

00:44:31.000 To the contrary, we have far greater evidence of even U.S.

00:44:35.000 companies that do business in China handing over U.S.

00:44:39.000 user data to the CCP than we have for TikTok itself.

00:44:43.000 I'll give you a very specific example.

00:44:45.000 Airbnb, a U.S.

00:44:46.000 domiciled company, supposedly with principally U.S.

00:44:49.000 shareholders.

00:44:50.000 A few years ago, Solid Wall Street Journal reporting on this.

00:44:53.000 I talk about it in greater detail in my book, Woking, my first one.

00:44:56.000 Handing over U.S. 0.90

00:44:58.000 user data of its customers.

00:44:59.000 People probably used Airbnb.

00:45:00.000 The private messages sent between renters and hosts.

00:45:04.000 Geolocational data.

00:45:05.000 The private data of U.S.

00:45:07.000 users handed over to the CCP, presumably as a condition for Airbnb being able to do business.

00:45:14.000 in China. So the fact that Airbnb isn't Chinese owned, it doesn't stop it from doing that. So my point about this 0.99

00:45:19.000 bill building under inclusive is if the problem is transferring

00:45:22.000 us user data to the CCP, transferring the ownership matters very little as long as there's another lever for

00:45:29.000 actual control over those companies. I agree with a major problem.

00:45:32.000 I do agree with it. Good. No, I agree. So I think that I think

00:45:35.000 that the idea that we're just gonna Oh, now we change the ownership of this one company, massively expanded President

00:45:41.000 Biden's authority to determine what platform does or doesn't count as being controlled by a foreign adversary to be able

00:45:46.000 to shut it down, I think is a massive civil civil libertarian

00:45:51.000 Without really any juice to address the core concern of Chinese leverage over the United States, when in fact that leverage plays out through so many levers other than equity ownership, against the backdrop of the further irony that we have companies from Google to Airbnb that have shown greater leverage to the Chinese Communist Party than this Chinese owned company.

00:46:11.000 If I may push back, I agree with you, by the way.

00:46:12.000 Last time I was in an Airbnb, I found a camera in the two-way mirror.

00:46:15.000 I knew it was the CCP, and I said, get a look.

00:46:18.000 Get a look.

00:46:19.000 Because I'm confident, you know, I'm right at the bell curve of average, but you know, it's okay.

00:46:24.000 So my point here is, I understand that, however, those bills don't exist.

00:46:29.000 TikTok does, there is not, I agree with you, this happens not only with Facebook and with YouTube, in the terms that they want their content to be palatable to foreign countries, right?

00:46:39.000 And so they throttle content, just like we saw with the NBA, for example, where they couldn't speak out, they couldn't even acknowledge Taiwan.

00:46:45.000 NBA, Black Rock, Disney, you go straight down the list.

00:46:49.000 There's a lot of leverage for expanding.

00:46:50.000 I completely agree on that.

00:46:52.000 We spend a lot of time on that.

00:46:55.000 Your point is there is a starting point, right?

00:46:58.000 You're not going to get a bill that will establish, hey, you guys can't allow this leverage even in catering to the content of foreign adversaries or transferring data.

00:47:08.000 I think there's a very clean bill that should be passed.

00:47:10.000 This is one that I would vehemently support.

00:47:12.000 I'm not in Congress right now, thank God, but I think I would be able, if I were, I would push for this.

00:47:19.000 Is a clean bill, irrespective of ownership, irrespective of domicile, it is fundamentally illegal for any U.S.

00:47:27.000 holder of U.S.

00:47:28.000 user data to transfer that data to the Chinese government or its affiliates.

00:47:32.000 Period.

00:47:33.000 Put an end to the practice.

00:47:35.000 And that's how we do things in the United States of America.

00:47:37.000 There's an undesired behavior.

00:47:39.000 We go after that regardless of who's actually doing it.

00:47:42.000 And that reveals what's really going on, because I do think we're falling for a kind of trick here.

00:47:46.000 One of the people playing the trick is it's a combination of, I think, a Biden-led administrative state that wants to expand its executive authority, an administration that's already been using platforms like Facebook, pressuring them through the back door to go after its political opponents.

00:48:00.000 To expand the range of who they're able to go after, but to bring this full circle, here's the dirty little secret in Washington D.C.

00:48:06.000 You know who's advocating for this bill?

00:48:08.000 It's really the lobbyists hired by that very company, Facebook.

00:48:11.000 And so we are falling for a Facebook-led lobbying campaign to deflect attention from the reality of Facebook engaging in some of the same behaviors it's accusing TikTok of, getting in bed with the government actor, not quite the CCP here, but the The deep state in the United States of America doing the same thing, deflecting attention, effectively sidelining one competitor, while actually being the product of one company's self-interested lobbying, as opposed to a full-fledged ban of the underlying behavior that actually would ensnare Facebook and Google and Airbnb, but which those companies have effectively lobbied their way out of being

00:48:49.000 Well, that's the point, right?

00:48:50.000 Nothing's going to happen there.

00:48:51.000 You're not going to... Here is a bill where something can happen.

00:48:53.000 In other words, how would bringing TikTok under a U.S.

00:48:56.000 entity, right, hinder our ability to restrict it?

00:48:59.000 It's a step.

00:48:59.000 You're not going to get... This is the same reason that the Democratic... By the way, I'm agreeing with you.

00:49:03.000 The radical left Democratic wing opposed this bill.

00:49:05.000 The AOCs of the world. 1.00

00:49:06.000 Why?

00:49:07.000 Because they love being favored by the algorithms of Facebook and X.

00:49:10.000 That's independent.

00:49:11.000 Sorry, not X, but what used to be Twitter right at one point in time, YouTube of course.

00:49:15.000 But at this point there's something before us that says, okay, here's a way to take a

00:49:18.000 step.

00:49:19.000 And by the way, President Trump supported it back then until he was against it.

00:49:22.000 I'm sure that you've heard people say.

00:49:24.000 Well, first of all, federal.

00:49:25.000 Well, I would say one thing about that.

00:49:26.000 Federal courts rescinded that ban, right?

00:49:28.000 And I do think that federal courts, and I think the Supreme Court, will come down against this one as well for some of the same reasons.

00:49:35.000 Came down against that because that was an executive order, but will come down against this one in part because of the expanse of abuses inherent in a law that's this vague and this broad, directed effectively at one company that vests this much authority in the chief executive and the president.

00:49:48.000 And I don't think we do ourselves any favors by saying, oh, there's a bill, only to see it rescinded, just like it happened last time around by the Supreme Court or by federal courts.

00:49:55.000 I think that there's an opportunity where if you're just a consumer and I take an average person home and say, OK, something's come up.

00:50:01.000 Why not just sign that?

00:50:03.000 I'm interested in the process by which it comes up.

00:50:05.000 Well, just to be clear, they rescinded the bill.

00:50:07.000 I want to be clear.

00:50:08.000 They rescinded the bill because they said it was outside the purview of executive order.

00:50:12.000 The bill did go through Congress.

00:50:14.000 And I guess this does bring me to my question.

00:50:16.000 Authority in the executive.

00:50:17.000 One thing in this bill is it's the sole authority in the U.S.

00:50:21.000 President to make these determinations, which I think is a civil libertarian nightmare.

00:50:26.000 If you think President Biden has unfairly, indirectly censored political opposition through the back door of tech companies, then it's probably a bad idea to give him even greater latitude to do it directly through the front door of this law.

00:50:39.000 I completely agree with the sentiment.

00:50:43.000 And you know that I've been, this has been my cause du jour long before anyone else has even come along the trail.

00:50:49.000 We were demonetized.

00:50:50.000 I've been on YouTube since 2009.

00:50:51.000 Well, 2006, I've watched it grow.

00:50:53.000 I agree with everything you've just said, except this bill is specific enough that it doesn't do that.

00:50:58.000 And I think you're going to have a really hard time saying, well, this bill is too broad, and then get any kind of traction with a bill that would say, Undue influence and the ability to have data transfer to a foreign entity of any kind.

00:51:10.000 This is four specific adversaries listed, a specific type of ownership listed, either it being headquartered or domiciled.

00:51:16.000 Something that specific, if we say that that can't happen, something more broad has no chance in hell.

00:51:21.000 That's a worry.

00:51:23.000 I respectfully, yeah, and there's a good dialogue.

00:51:26.000 I just respectfully disagree with that because it's too specific in some ways and too broad in others.

00:51:29.000 It's too broad in the authority that it gives the U.S.

00:51:31.000 president to make a determination, and it's randomly specific in a way that's specifically designed to exclude the very U.S.

00:51:38.000 companies that lobbied for it.

00:51:39.000 That's where the specificity comes from.

00:51:41.000 Ownership is not the only lever that matters when you have the likes of Google that claimed, publicly told all of us, that it was exiting China under its don't be evil mantra, only to see years later that they had Project Dragonfly working with the CCP to create a censored search engine in China that was completely publicly not disclosed, a government contracting project with China, until leaks actually revealed it.

00:52:02.000 The instances with Airbnb, I could enumerate other instances.

00:52:05.000 The specificity was paid for by the lobbyists to carve out U.S.

00:52:10.000 companies from being excluded.

00:52:11.000 The very U.S. 0.88

00:52:12.000 companies that are threatened by TikTok's growing market share, not by TikTok's actual behavior.

00:52:16.000 Versus the actual breadth and specificity is this.

00:52:20.000 If a U.S. 0.70

00:52:20.000 user has not expressly consented, not in some litany of general warranties that you just sign at the bottom through an adhesive agreement, But specific express consent to have their user data transferred to a government, either domestic or foreign, then a company cannot do it. 0.70

00:52:39.000 Period.

00:52:39.000 I think it's that simple.

00:52:40.000 And I think if we go to the hard nuts and bolts of the real issue lurking underneath all of this, Which is the data privacy and who owns the data of individual users that we're handing over to all of these tech companies, from TikTok to Chinese-owned to American-owned but Chinese-influenced.

00:52:54.000 That's what we need to do.

00:52:55.000 And I think we should have broad bipartisan support.

00:52:59.000 And if we don't, it smokes out the reason why.

00:53:02.000 It's because U.S.

00:53:03.000 companies are lobbying against doing the thing that actually needs to be done.

00:53:06.000 And so I don't take that for given, right?

00:53:08.000 Because there's a reasonable point of view to say, OK, we live in a broken system.

00:53:11.000 There's all kinds of broken lobbying from these Silicon Valleys who control these congressmen anyway.

00:53:15.000 And so if the Silicon Valley companies control them and we take that for granted, then if this is the best we're going to get, let's at least go for it.

00:53:22.000 I don't take that for granted.

00:53:23.000 I think the best way to deal with that broken system is to name the problem.

00:53:27.000 And that's why I'm naming exactly what's going on here.

00:53:29.000 Anybody in Washington, D.C.

00:53:31.000 knows the dirty little secret here is this is Facebook paid for multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.

00:53:36.000 The fake specificity is designed to exclude the very companies that have lobbied for it.

00:53:40.000 And I say hell no to that system.

00:53:42.000 There is a serious problem here of forced data transfers to the CCP.

00:53:46.000 Deal with it directly.

00:53:46.000 Deal with it.

00:53:47.000 And you know what?

00:53:48.000 If Airbnb or Google or anybody else is ensnared, so be it, because they should be.

00:53:52.000 And the fact that they paid a bunch of lobbyists here more effectively than the other guys should not determine which laws we do or do not pass.

00:53:58.000 I agree with everything in spirit.

00:53:59.000 I would have one disagree... Well, I would ask you to just blaze in on one point here.

00:54:03.000 You said, because of TikTok's ownership, not their behavior.

00:54:07.000 Do you actually believe that TikTok's behavior, their algorithms, and how they control content is not at least as egregious as Facebook?

00:54:16.000 I don't have as much evidence for that.

00:54:19.000 The truth is we don't have as much transparency into TikTok, but the ultimate irony of this, Stephen, is that if you look at the most egregious behaviors in the last 10 years of state actors pressuring a tech company to censor or moderate content in a particular way, engage in persuasion, tilting the scales of elections, engaging in forced data transfers to governments without permission, The places where we have greatest evidence of that, hard evidence, is actually for our US tech companies in Silicon Valley, working hand in glove in bed with US deep state actors.

00:54:51.000 That's where we have the plainest evidence.

00:54:51.000 I completely agree.

00:54:53.000 So it's beyond bizarre that where we have the plainest evidence, we turn the other way.

00:54:57.000 But where we have good circumstantial evidence to be concerned, that's where we've created the lightning rod when it advantages the very companies for whom we have the most damning evidence.

00:55:06.000 So I just think we've got to be data driven there.

00:55:08.000 No, I completely agree.

00:55:09.000 But look, come on, Vivek, you're also, you're a brilliant man, you're a genius, far smarter than I, and you know that it will always be circumstantial evidence because we can't get to the evidence because of the lack of transparency of TikTok because of the Chinese ownership.

00:55:18.000 Sure, and I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything.

00:55:20.000 I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything.

00:55:21.000 I'm saying we should do something that will have a significantly restrictive impact on TikTok, but it will also have a restrictive impact on anybody else who's trying to do the same thing.

00:55:29.000 And let me just give you one more example here.

00:55:31.000 Many of the top apps in the App Store are Chinese, actually, in the Apple App Store.

00:55:36.000 TikTok is the one that managed to capture the public imagination right now.

00:55:40.000 Even if you're looking at Chinese ownership, what are they going to do? 0.99

00:55:43.000 They're going to effectively divest them through intermediary shell companies that have ownership that isn't technically Chinese at the top.

00:55:50.000 It's gameable.

00:55:51.000 And so the specificity The so-called specificity of this that was designed to exclude U.S.

00:55:56.000 companies that lobbied for it will also render this ineffective.

00:56:00.000 Play this forward two years.

00:56:01.000 This bill is going to have no impact other than forcing a divestment of one random company and a bunch of virtue-signaling Republicans patting themselves on the back.

00:56:08.000 Twenty years later, when you have a regime that's been censoring political speech, using this as the basis to do it, decrying how we ever got here, exactly what we say about Republicans passing the Patriot Act 20 years ago.

00:56:18.000 And so I just think as a Republican Party, we need to grow up and get back to first principles.

00:56:22.000 Stop being pawns of the lobbyists that pay these politicians and use them as puppets.

00:56:26.000 And see if there's a behavior that's problematic, and identify three that are relevant to tick tock that are absolutely problematic.

00:56:32.000 Sure, great, ban the behavior, have the courage to do it, rather than have Facebook's write up some sort of legislation with some fake specificity to exclude Mark Zuckerberg founded meta, and then put it up and say, this is what we have to sign. 0.82

00:56:44.000 That's garbage.

00:56:45.000 And I refuse to just Play by the, you know, be a price taker, if you will, of what that broken lobbyist-influenced system puts up. 0.99

00:56:53.000 And instead go back to actually first principles to say that if we're at first principles, this isn't the bill we'd be passing.

00:56:58.000 We'd be stopping forced data transfers to the Chinese.

00:57:00.000 We'd be protecting young people from addiction on social media.

00:57:03.000 And any time a content platform is working with any state actor to engage in persuasion by up-regulating or down-regulating or censoring speech, that's a backdoor constitutional violation.

00:57:13.000 And we deem it to be illegal.

00:57:15.000 That's the course of action we should take, and I would be the first and strongest proponent for it.

00:57:20.000 And so, you have others.

00:57:21.000 Now you go to the AOCs of the world, they're not going to be for that.

00:57:23.000 No, of course not.

00:57:24.000 You go to many on the left, they're not going to be for that.

00:57:26.000 That's what we need to be for rather than... And by the way, there won't be enough...

00:57:29.000 There won't be enough Republicans for that.

00:57:30.000 I can't tell you how many conversations that we've had here with congressmen and senators who've talked about it.

00:57:34.000 Then we hear them quoting us and using our data in Senate hearings and doing nothing.

00:57:38.000 Because they all have podcasts and they all have giant Facebook pages and they want to play ball with them.

00:57:38.000 Why?

00:57:42.000 So I agree with everything you said.

00:57:43.000 Let me say a word about this.

00:57:44.000 There's a reason why Trump, Elon Musk, Rand Paul, Thomas Massey, myself, I think Tucker I was reading, it's a diverse array of libertarian and libertarian nationalist voices.

00:57:55.000 I don't consider myself just a pure libertarian.

00:57:57.000 I'm a libertarian nationalist.

00:57:58.000 I do believe that the world stage is a jungle, and we have to play by the rules of the autocrats on the globe.

00:58:04.000 We don't have to play by their rules, but we have to acknowledge that they're not playing by our rules when we protect ourselves as a country.

00:58:09.000 So I'm not some blithe, Friedmanite, dreaming libertarian just believing that everybody plays by our fantasy rules.

00:58:15.000 No.

00:58:16.000 We have serious issues with foreign adversaries that we actually need to deal with.

00:58:19.000 But don't be duped into tricking ourselves to think that we did it when we didn't, while actually behaving more like the adversary in the process.

00:58:25.000 That's where I land.

00:58:26.000 Well, one final question, and Vivek, you know that we love you, appreciate you, of course.

00:58:31.000 One thing I will say too, because you've talked about and I agree on the foreign, not only foreign adversary, but on the funding that comes from lobbyist groups.

00:58:39.000 Everyone you just mentioned, including yourself, money from Jeff Yass, who owns a $33 billion stake in ByteDance.

00:58:45.000 You're never going to get away from that question from your critics.

00:58:47.000 Everyone you just named, it's a diverse coalition, except for one true... Everybody should ask the question, right? 1.00

00:58:51.000 Yeah.

00:58:52.000 Yeah, so I think for a lot of politicians, that'd be a reasonable question.

00:58:55.000 Just get to the truth of the matter, right?

00:58:57.000 In my case, you got a guy who's funded a bunch of Republican candidates, as far as I know, Yeah, in my case, look, just look at the facts.

00:59:04.000 People know what my net worth is.

00:59:05.000 It's public.

00:59:06.000 Look at how much I put into the campaign.

00:59:07.000 It's public too.

00:59:08.000 Yes.

00:59:08.000 Do you think that the positions that I've taken in the campaign, do you think that those have been ones that have earned me more donors or lost to me more donors?

00:59:15.000 I probably lost tens, if not maybe even a hundred million dollar plus donations over the course of the campaign because of positions I took on foreign policy and elsewhere.

00:59:23.000 And I put 30 million on my own and probably would have put a lot more on my own if I stayed in the race.

00:59:27.000 So if, you know, everyone has to make their own judgments, but put yourself... Well, that's a lot of money I put in.

00:59:35.000 I can't say what a lot of what someone had to consume.

00:59:39.000 But what I will say is that people should make their own judgments, right?

00:59:42.000 Think for yourself, think independently.

00:59:44.000 And I just encourage you to do the same thing with respect to who's actually putting up this particular bill.

00:59:50.000 And I do think that it's important not to... See, the equivalent of me in this debate would have been to say, not make any of the points I made, but just say, Facebook is funding the bill, and that's it.

00:59:59.000 Right?

00:59:59.000 Not offer any other kind of argument on the merits.

01:00:01.000 And you didn't do that.

01:00:02.000 Okay.

01:00:02.000 Well, like, that would be like an ad hominem attack on Facebook.

01:00:05.000 Right.

01:00:05.000 But you can't use that as a substitute for engaging on the merits.

01:00:08.000 Right.

01:00:08.000 So if you want to say that, you know, any of these politicians or myself or whatever else was supported by some guy, great, say it, but then don't use that as a substitute for engaging on the merits.

01:00:17.000 I agree.

01:00:17.000 Because the merits should be what govern.

01:00:19.000 I do think very important merit would be that entire coalition, putting together and pushing for a bill that would require the kind of legislation that you claim would be productive, that would relate to Facebook, YouTube, X, and TikTok.

01:00:19.000 I agree.

01:00:33.000 And TikTok.

01:00:34.000 Yep.

01:00:35.000 I haven't seen it yet.

01:00:36.000 That's the issue.

01:00:37.000 It doesn't exist.

01:00:38.000 And it's never going to happen until we start with something specific.

01:00:41.000 Because you know what?

01:00:43.000 If I ran for president, and I've been talking about this in the campaign, John, if I ever were president, you can take it to the bank that I would push head and shoulders all the way down for actual robust legislation to deal with this threat, but actually want to deal with the threat rather than pretending to while creating a civil libertarian nightmare in the process.

01:01:00.000 And I hope that you would push head and shoulders, or at least sell some blue, for me to be reinstated on TikTok.

01:01:06.000 I was setting you up for that.

01:01:08.000 Yeah, there you go.

01:01:09.000 Alright.

01:01:10.000 Vivek, I know you gotta go.

01:01:11.000 Where's the best place for people to find you and support you?

01:01:13.000 I appreciate you making the case here.

01:01:17.000 Any social media, whatever I should, you know.

01:01:20.000 TikTok him! 0.99

01:01:21.000 TikTok him! 0.99

01:01:22.000 Alright.

01:01:23.000 Hey, Vivek, hope to have you back in studio soon, brother.

01:01:25.000 Thank you very much.

01:01:40.000 Let's hold it for a bit, but you'll let it through later.

01:01:44.000 I liked and didn't like some of those answers, and I think he was trying to be as honest as he possibly could.

01:01:51.000 If you want, we can get into that a little bit in Mug Club after we go through it, or we can talk about it right now.

01:01:56.000 I know we went a little long with Let's give it a brief recap.

01:01:56.000 Which one?

01:01:59.000 Look, I agree, and I don't want to bring up the funding from Jeff Yass, but again, we've been sitting here for so long where nothing happens, and I do think that this bill is specific enough where, look, there's a world in which, he said fast forward it two, three years.

01:02:13.000 I understand the concern of the executive power, right?

01:02:15.000 However, this is something that Donald Trump did support at one point in time, and all these people did support at one point in time.

01:02:19.000 He signed an executive order on it, right?

01:02:19.000 He signed an executive order on it!

01:02:21.000 He did exactly what- And it's not like the bill changed much since then.

01:02:24.000 As a matter of fact, it's not like the bill got more broad.

01:02:26.000 If you look at anything right now, you could argue that it got a little- it became a little bit more specific.

01:02:31.000 Two years' time where TikTok has basically American ownership or American control over what happens in the United States, which I cannot see as a net negative at this point.

01:02:40.000 I don't believe that any type of foreign adversary should be able to operate in the United States.

01:02:43.000 And then maybe work on some legislation that also would include Facebook, YouTube, Airbnb, you know, the people spying on me there when I was at Opossum Kingdom, like, will grow up never feeling like real men.

01:02:56.000 But start with something, and the issue that we see so much is nothing happens because they say this is, you know, a good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

01:03:05.000 Right.

01:03:06.000 And the irony is not lost on me, the idea of giving control over to the government, but they already control.

01:03:11.000 I don't see this as giving control to the government so much as putting reins in on foreign governments and how the government can manipulate the digital town square, because they're doing it now.

01:03:20.000 Yeah, so he kind of undercut his own argument in one way, and you lasered in on it a couple of times, but if Facebook and those other companies were so effective at fighting or getting this bill done on TikTok and making sure they were excluded, how much more effective, how much more money, how much more fight would they give if the bill actually targeted practices that they were engaging in specifically?

01:03:41.000 So they've been effective here and got bipartisan support.

01:03:43.000 Pretty much everybody jumped on board except for, I think, around 50 people in the House.

01:03:47.000 We'll see how the Senate handles this.

01:03:48.000 They would be very effective there.

01:03:50.000 So I don't think that bill has much of a chance right now.

01:03:52.000 And so again, we go back to, oh, we just can't do anything about it right now because this is the perfect way to do it.

01:03:57.000 The president has to present a report to Congress 30 days before making this declaration.

01:04:01.000 That's also in the bill.

01:04:02.000 The president doesn't, in my opinion, and I'm not a legal scholar and I'm not a constitutional scholar, get more power than they already have here.

01:04:10.000 What happened is that the court basically, Biden took over and did not pursue defending Trump's ban.

01:04:17.000 That's what happened.

01:04:18.000 Exactly.

01:04:18.000 It wasn't necessarily that it went all the way through the process and would have gone as far as Trump maybe would have pushed it had he stayed in office.

01:04:24.000 So I have a problem with that.

01:04:25.000 I also think what we're trying to do as conservatives, Republicans, whatever you want to label yourself, as people who defend free speech, we want to make sure that you don't look like you flip-flop for money.

01:04:36.000 That's why we brought up Jeff Yes.

01:04:38.000 Because somebody is going to bring that up and it might not be somebody who aligns with you and goes, You're just bought and paid for.

01:04:44.000 I have a problem with Thomas Massie misrepresenting what is in this bill to people on Twitter so he can get clicks.

01:04:49.000 I have a problem with Rand Paul making an argument that he knows is probably not true based on the reports that we have from the Oracle stuff and the New York Times article.

01:04:57.000 I have a problem with Elon Musk saying the things that he's saying when you can go into the bill and see it's specifically for foreign adversary countries and specific indications on ownership.

01:05:07.000 And I get that that's not broad enough and we can go a little bit further.

01:05:10.000 They're not all making the same argument.

01:05:11.000 That was going to be one of my points.

01:05:13.000 Elon Musk has also been, I love what he's done to a very large degree.

01:05:19.000 You won't find a greater Achilles heel than how soft Elon Musk has been on China.

01:05:23.000 I know!

01:05:23.000 Let's be really clear about that because it's a very important market to him.

01:05:27.000 And you will see a lot of, and I'm not saying Vivek, a lot of conservatives, a lot of quote-unquote populists who play ball For Elon Musk to get, you want to get in good with X?

01:05:39.000 Don't talk about China so much.

01:05:41.000 Just do me a favor, go and do your own research.

01:05:43.000 The people who really rely on X, the people who maybe start their programs on X, the people who partner, tell me where they truly criticize China in a way that is actually damaging, in a way that is actually quantifiable.

01:05:55.000 You won't see it.

01:05:56.000 If you play ball, you want to play ball with X? 0.69

01:06:00.000 You play ball with China to a degree. 0.98

01:06:02.000 That is a fact.

01:06:02.000 It's something that you can see.

01:06:03.000 It's something that, again, two things can be true.

01:06:06.000 No people are perfect.

01:06:07.000 You can agree with people on some issues and disagree with them on others.

01:06:10.000 And hey, you know what?

01:06:10.000 Maybe we're wrong about all of this.

01:06:12.000 Maybe Jeff Yass would be thrilled to find out that Rumble would purchase at least the American portion of TikTok, have a controlling stake in the American portion, and allow freedom of speech and disallow foreign communist Chinese influence Maybe Jeff Yass actually could use the influence there to encourage the sale. 0.61

01:06:29.000 Now I know obviously with ByteDance it might be a little bit complicated, but maybe there could be something that would be worked out where he would be looking out for you and guaranteeing that let's take steps in removing the power from foreign adversaries like the Communist Chinese Party and then stepping towards removing that influence through, for example, data, through, for example, algorithmic favors being done with companies like Facebook and YouTube, etc.

01:06:52.000 You can find the same thing on YouTube.

01:06:53.000 China's a big market.

01:06:54.000 It's why John Cena apologized for even acknowledging that Taiwan existed.

01:06:58.000 Can we bring up that clip, guys?

01:07:00.000 People may have forgotten about it.

01:07:02.000 What?

01:07:02.000 That's what he said.

01:07:03.000 Hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt, hunt.

01:07:08.000 I mean, ever since Vic hung up, we've been getting a call from Segoeville Minimum Security Prison.

01:07:13.000 Oh, that's prison gear.

01:07:14.000 That's Prison Gare. Put him through.

01:07:16.000 Prison Gare again.

01:07:18.000 Prison Gare, how you holding up there, brother?

01:07:25.000 mother.

01:07:26.000 The name is Vlad now.

01:07:28.000 I am new leader of Bratva prison gang.

01:07:30.000 Yeah, I'm not calling you that.

01:07:32.000 There is a new boss running the yard.

01:07:34.000 Gary, the only thing running is the train on you. 0.99

01:07:36.000 You're like the Forrest Gump of finding ways to get raped in prison. 0.99

01:07:40.000 Stephen's rape joke's so funny, Vlad forgot to laugh. 1.00

01:07:43.000 Ha! 0.89

01:07:45.000 This is what I think of Stephen's prison jokes.

01:07:47.000 Vlad, Gary, that's impressive artwork.

01:07:52.000 And in prison?

01:07:54.000 Jeez.

01:07:54.000 Wow.

01:07:55.000 My new lieutenant is the tattoo artist.

01:07:58.000 That's excellent work.

01:07:59.000 Wait, what?

01:08:00.000 Stephen, how could I get tattooed in the dark?

01:08:02.000 The lights were on while his assistant kept me secure while I was bent over, exposing my back. 0.99

01:08:06.000 You have a tattoo of Satan in the afterglow of raping you on your back. 0.99

01:08:09.000 Did you get that tattoo before or after it was dark and you banged your head, prison gare? 0.98

01:08:13.000 Steven, how could I get tattooed in the dark?

01:08:18.000 The lights were on while his assistant kept me secure while I was bent over, exposing my back.

01:08:24.000 No.

01:08:24.000 You both wanted to make sure I didn't squirm and ruin the artwork.

01:08:28.000 No, goodbye Vlad.

01:08:29.000 We're gonna need a new social media guy.

01:08:31.000 We can't have him.

01:08:32.000 We can't have him!

01:08:33.000 We gotta get- get him!

01:08:34.000 Go.

01:08:40.000 All right.

01:08:41.000 Geez.

01:08:42.000 It looked pretty cool.

01:08:42.000 Pretty impressive.

01:08:43.000 It was honestly cool until you saw the face.

01:08:46.000 I think that's still cool.

01:08:47.000 You think it's still cool?

01:08:48.000 Oh, yeah.

01:08:49.000 Still cool.

01:08:49.000 Oh, yeah.

01:08:50.000 I put his face on a baby.

01:08:51.000 I don't think he put the face on the baby face.

01:08:54.000 I think someone else put the baby face.

01:08:56.000 Well, yeah, he didn't tattoo himself.

01:08:57.000 Well, no, I know he didn't.

01:08:59.000 That'd be hard.

01:08:59.000 I'm afraid when you are incarcerated, there is not much else to do but desecrate the flesh.

01:09:03.000 Name that movie line.

01:09:05.000 Let us know what you think.

01:09:05.000 The Sina thing, by the way, if you want to hit that before we leave.

01:09:07.000 The Sina Hunt.

01:09:08.000 Okay, so before we go, we're going to, if you are watching, we're going to continue discussing First Amendment and all of the speech infringements that take place across the globe right now.

01:09:17.000 For example, people being arrested for karaoke singing, kung fu fighting.

01:09:21.000 Or making fun of Prime Ministers in foreign countries.

01:09:23.000 Literally making fun of them.

01:09:24.000 Jokes.

01:09:25.000 We're going to continue with this so you understand how this affects you on Mug Club.

01:09:27.000 You can click that button right now if you're watching on Rumble.

01:09:30.000 None of this happens without you.

01:09:32.000 We have some investigative journalism coming down the pike.

01:09:34.000 None of that happens without you.

01:09:36.000 And let us know what you think.

01:09:38.000 Hit the like button if you appreciate the dialogue.

01:09:40.000 I really, I do like Vivek.

01:09:41.000 I can disagree on this specific bill, but I agree with the spirit of his criticisms.

01:09:46.000 Yeah, and that's what we wanted.

01:09:48.000 We wanted to understand where they were coming from because I know what people will do.

01:09:51.000 They'll play the clip and then they'll look at the tweet from before and go, well, you flipped on the issue and it's because of money.

01:09:56.000 Right.

01:09:57.000 And look, if it is because of that, then that is wrong, right?

01:09:59.000 But you have to have an opportunity to make your case.

01:10:01.000 And we didn't see them making their case as effectively as Vivek did, where he's like, hey, it's about a bigger, broader bill.

01:10:06.000 Facebook is really the driver behind this.

01:10:08.000 Okay, let's dig into that and see if that is 100% true.

01:10:11.000 Right.

01:10:11.000 And that at least gives us something to work with instead of going, well, they just flipped because some guy donated money to their campaigns.

01:10:17.000 I think it's important to be able to articulate that argument.

01:10:20.000 Before we leave, hey, Mission Control, get us the update on the judge dismissing some of the counts against Trump in Georgia.

01:10:26.000 I'm sure people will want to know about that.

01:10:27.000 Let's talk about that on Mug Club.

01:10:28.000 Before we go to Mug Club, and of course we will see you tomorrow, we have the clip now just so you can see the undue influence of the Communist Chinese Party. 0.59

01:10:37.000 Here is John Cena on his knees, Jacob Marley, on his knees apologizing to China for acknowledging that Taiwan might actually exist, and then it's pissed off YouTube.

01:10:50.000 I have one mistake.

01:10:51.000 I have to say it now.

01:10:52.000 It's very, very, very, very important.

01:10:54.000 I love and respect China and the Chinese.

01:10:57.000 I'm very, very sorry for my mistake.

01:11:00.000 I'm sorry.

01:11:01.000 I'm sorry.

01:11:02.000 I'm very sorry.

01:11:03.000 You have to understand.

01:11:05.000 I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm very sorry.

01:11:11.000 You must understand, I love and respect China and the Chinese.

01:11:19.000 I love you.

01:11:26.000 Oh Bye!

01:11:30.000 What?

Louder with Crowder - March 13, 2024

BREAKING: TikTok "Ban" Bill Passes the House! Guest Vivek Ramaswamy

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript