Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich Tussles With John Kirby Over Biden Using TikTok While He’s ‘Weighing a National Ban’ On It
President Joe Biden’s campaign debuted their new TikTok account after the Super Bowl on Sunday, and that had reporters asking a lot of questions — because the Biden administration is considering a national ban of the app.
One of those reporters was Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, who pressed Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council John Kirby during Monday’s White House press briefing about Biden appearing in a TikTok video while “weighing a national ban” on it:
Heinrich: John, just following up on this TikTok stuff. Is the CFIUS [the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] review still happening?
Kirby: I’d have to refer you to CFIUS. I’m not in a position to confirm one way or another what they’re looking at.
Heinrich: So, is the administration still weighing a ban on TikTok?
Kirby: Again, I have nothing for you on that, Jacqui, I mean, I’d have to refer you to to CFIUS. All I can speak to credibly, which I have today, is that from an NSC perspective, there are still national security concerns about the use of TikTok on government devices, and there’s been no change to our policy not to allow that.
Heinrich: Can you help me understand though, like, why there wouldn’t be any communication between CFIUS and the administration broadly and with the National Security Council —
Kirby: I didn’t say there wasn’t, I just said I’m not able to speak to issues regarding CFIUS. You’d have to talk to them. It’s an independent body, and it’s not something, I can’t speak for them.
Heinrich: I think we’re all just trying to square why the president would use this platform that his administration is weighing a national ban on because of national security concerns.
Kirby: Again, I’m not going to speak to any hypothetical ban. I can only tell you that it’s not allowed on government devices. That policy remains the case, and I just can’t speak for the campaign or their decisions, I apologize.
Biden banned TikTok from government-issued devices because of national security risks, but his reelection campaign is a different story. There is an ongoing investigation into the app’s China-based parent company ByteDance and a review being conducted by CFIUS. Neither of them involve the use of the app by the Biden campaign.
According to The Bulwark national political reporter Marc Caputo, a source with the president’s campaign said it was using “firewalled devices devoted solely to the [TikTok] app to minimize the chance of data theft.”
Watch the video above via C-SPAN.
