‘Stop The Bullsh*t’: Fox Host Blasts Politicians Supporting TikTok After Trump Backs Platform
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Fox News host Mark Levin slammed U.S. leaders supporting TikTok on Monday, fuming that the “filthy rich” are using their resources to “buy” support for the Chinese social media platform.
Levin’s angry condemnation came the day after former President Donald Trump doubled down on his flip-flop on banning TikTok. Trump told Fox’s Howard Kurtz in an interview on Sunday’s MediaBuzz that if TikTok were banned, it would help “worse” social media companies.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!” Trump wrote last week on his Truth Social platform, explaining his new found support for TikTok after leading the effort to ban the app in 2020.
“As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States. I have that authority. … It’s going to be signed tomorrow,” Trump said in 2020 regarding the app, despite telling Kurtz he didn’t “demand” the app be banned while he was president.
Levin shared an article detailing lobbyists “talking points” against the House’s bill to force the Chinese company behind TikTok to divest its stake in the company or face a ban in six months. He then shared his thoughts on the article, writing, “Stop the bullshit about Tik Tok. It’s a massive Communist Chinese operation spying on us and gathering data on us. The fact that certain Americans have gotten filthy rich from working with them and hire lobbyists and buy off politicians and activists is no reason for we, the people, to put up with this crap.”
While Levin was targeting the opponents in Congress to the anti-TikTok legislation, which included many MAGA members of Congress like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), his comment was also a jab at Trump – who Levin vehemently supports while on air.
Trump raised eyebrows in recent weeks for his embrace of TikTok following a meeting with hedge fund billionaire Jeff Yass, who owns a 15 percent stake in TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, worth tens of billions. Yass has also been one of the GOP’s biggest donors so far this election cycle and Bloomberg reported last week that Trump was considering Yass for Treasury Secretary should he return to the White House.
Last Monday, Trump denied on CNBC that he spoke to Yass about TikTok when the two met at a Club For Growth retreat last week. “No, I didn’t,” Trump said, claiming he and Yass only spoke briefly. “He never mentioned TikTok.”
Former Trump campaign manager and White House adviser Steve Bannon suggested that the reason behind Trump’s conversion on TikTok was indeed Yass. Bannon shared on social media an Axios article titled, “Inside Trump’s TikTok flip-flop,” and added, “Simple: Yass Coin.”
