Mollie Hemingway: Emphasis on TikTok’s ‘Amazing Data’ Over Larger Chinese National Security ‘Threats’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
BAIER: “Yeah, our friend, Kevin O’Leary, Mollie is making a pitch, and a shark tank fame says he is ready to pay up to $20 billion to purchase TikTok. He is working with an investor group led by billionaire Frank McCourt Jr. I was going to say Shark Tank was pretty profitable if 20 billion was coming from Kevin alone. It’s not. They have got a pitch out there. So far the Chinese-based company bytedance is not biting on that.”
HEMINGWAY: “It relates to what the Supreme Court decided when they upheld the law that bans TikTok or prevents it from operating in the future, which is really about those national security concerns. And this is why the Chinese communist government values it so highly, they have amazing data information on tens of millions of Americans. It is interesting though, that people aren’t caring more about the First Amendment concerns in play here or if they care about algorithms. There are all these other social media companies that have gotten so involved through algorithms with what Americans are allowed to talk about, say discuss, and they haven’t seen those concerns there. But taking on China is a really big deal. It’s just kind of interesting that this is the first and only thing that Americans come together on, that American politicians have come together on when China is involved in so many different businesses, has so many former politicians on their payrolls and I think our people are a little suspicious about why it’s so much emphasis on TikTok and not all the other threats to national security that China poses.”