According to Fox News, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) just admitted that former President Donald Trump “was right” about the dangers of the China-owned video-sharing app TikTok.
Warner’s admission came during an appearance over the weekend on the Fox News Channel’s Fox News Sunday.
“Well, I think Donald Trump was right,” Warner said. “I mean, TikTok is an enormous threat,”
The senator continued: “So, if you’re a parent, and you’ve got a kid on TikTok, I would be very, very concerned. All of that data that your child is inputting and receiving is being stored somewhere in Beijing.”
Trump’s TikTok ban
It was back in August 2020 that Trump, as the U.S. president, announced that he was banning TikTok, citing national security concerns based on communist China’s ownership of the app and its access to user information.
“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” Trump said.
The move received quite a bit of pushback from not only China and TikTok, but also from American Democrats. But, that all came to an end when President Joe Biden took office and, in June 2021, revoked Trump’s TikTok ban.
Since then, however, it has become more and more apparent that, as Sen. Warner put it, “Trump was right” about the dangers of TikTok.
It’s true
Biden, to his credit, didn’t just give TikTok the “okay.” In addition to unbanning the platform in the U.S., Biden also called for a federal government investigation of the app.
Shortly thereafter, reports began emerging confirming the extent to which communist China controls TikTok and the extent to which it has access to user information. In June 2022, insider reports emerged indicating that not only can China access user information but that it has accessed user information.
The result of these revelations has been a bipartisan push to crackdown on TikTok. Many, including FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, are now even calling for the ban of TikTok, arguing that nothing short of a ban would fix the problem. It remains unclear, however, what action, if any, will be taken.
TikTok, from day one, has denied any wrongdoing and has insisted that user data is safe. The company continues to maintain that position.