Biden’s Desperate TikTok Flip-Flop
He banned the spyware from all federal government devices, but now he’s embracing it for reelection purposes.
Is TikTok a national security threat, or isn’t it? If we listen to Joe Biden, the answer appears to be, “Yes, very much so,” and, “No, not at all.”
We should explain: In November, the Biden administration banned TikTok from being used on all federal government devices due to national security concerns. All of them. But on Super Bowl Sunday, in the wake of his disastrous Thursday night presser, the president’s deeply desperate reelection campaign team announced to the world that it’s now embracing the Communist Chinese spyware platform and powerful propaganda tool, ostensibly to connect with young people — especially the Gen Z crowd, which has increasingly come to favor Donald Trump.
“Hey by the way, we just joined TikTok,” Team Biden announced on X. They then followed up that outrageous admission with a pathetic presidential pander — a pre-Super Bowl pop quiz to make Biden sound young and cool rather than old and addled. Go figure.
Hey by the way, we just joined TikTok
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 12, 2024
Follow us: https://t.co/KbtdOh2O4a pic.twitter.com/vDeXUzhb9W
In the TikTok spot, Biden is asked whether he was “deviously plotting to rig the season so the Chiefs would make the Super Bowl” or if they’re just “being a good football team.” To which Biden robotically responded, “I’d get in trouble if I told you.” Then an image of “Dark Brandon” — a satirical and supposedly hip meme of the decrepit Biden with laser beams shooting out of his eyes — flashes on the screen.
“Joe Biden is so desperate to pander to young voters,” posted Florida Republican Congressman Mike Waltz, “he’s willing to give away his campaign’s data to Communist China.”
Thus, it’s “do as I say, not as I do” for Biden and his reelection campaign, which knows full well that their guy’s competency numbers compared to Trump have nosedived among registered voters from 47% in June 2020 to just 32% today, according to the latest in a string of disastrous polls, this one from normally friendly NBC News.
Outgoing Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher, a retired Marine Corps intelligence officer who chairs the Select Committee on China, offered a scathing indictment of Biden’s nakedly contradictory decision:
“Every single Biden national security official — from the director of national intelligence to the CIA director to the DIA director to the head of Cyber Command — has warned that TikTok is a national security threat. The head of the FBI, Chris Wray, just testified before my committee and said that the parent company that owns TikTok is beholden to the Chinese government and, therefore, is a very significant threat. So here you have Biden’s hand-picked advisers telling him that this is effectively a CCP tool or weapon, and yet he’s ignoring that. Why? To court the votes of anti-Semitic 18-year-olds? To get progressive in a campaign season? It’s not a serious move. It’s not serious leadership. It’s not the move of a serious country. … I urge the president’s Gen-Z TikTok-addled campaign staffers to reverse course in the interest of national security.”
Fat chance of that, Congressman.
This, of course, is an act of utter desperation by Biden, the “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” whose underlings have told him that he’s toast in November without the low-information youth vote. The Left only cares about retaining power, which is why Biden is ignoring his administration’s own repeated warnings about TikTok.
“China may not officially endorse a presidential candidate in 2024,” said Fox News’s Laura Ingraham last night, “but we all know who their guy is, right? He’s the cool one using China’s propaganda platform TikTok.” Ingraham went on to note Biden’s cringeworthy appearance, as seen above, then added, “The Biden team is thrilled because they have now 100,000 new TikTok followers because of it. But an old guy trying to look cool? I don’t know. Always just ends up looking older and at odds with his own administration that brands TikTok as a national security threat to the United States.”
So, what’s the solution? “India banned TikTok,” said Gallagher, “and it wasn’t the apocalypse,” adding that the world’s largest democracy still enjoys a thriving social media environment and global technological leadership position. “Either a ban, or a forced sale, or a separation makes the most sense.”
What doesn’t make sense, though, is the expectation that the American people should swear off this ChiCom spyware while their commander-in-chief embraces it.
