John Roberts Scoffs at Democrats Defending TikTok and Claiming GOP ‘Xenophobia’ is Behind Potential Ban
Fox News host John Roberts was near speechless when reacting to a number of Democratic lawmakers this week, including Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), defending TikTok amidst calls for the app to be banned over national security concerns.
Bowman defended TikTok at a press conference ahead of a Senate hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. Bowman claimed there was possible “xenophobia” towards China in Republicans’ calls to ban the app. Critics on both sides of the political aisle though have raised concerns about TikTok’s data collection and its connection to China, being owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance.
On America Reports, Dana Perino called TikTok concerns “one of the most bipartisan” issues in recent years, and Roberts was flat-out perplexed by Bowman’s defense.
“I don’t know what Jamaal Bowman is missing. I mean this is a national security issue that people are talking about, this is a company that is sucking up mountains and mountains of data, gigabyte upon gigabyte upon terabyte, and he’s saying that’s potentially xenophobic and racist?” he said, scoffing.
Reacting to a video of Chew defending TikTok ahead of the hearing in which he claimed the security concerns with TikTok are not unique to the app. Roberts chalked it up as an entrepreneur leveraging his app to try and own the narrative.
“It shows Shou Chew is a smart guy,” he said. “He knows how to leverage his app. He’s got 150 million people on the hook here in the United States.”
Watch above via Fox News.
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