This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump has declared that he’s going to follow India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in banning the popular Chinese application called TikTok. He said the company’s sale to an American one wouldn’t change his conclusion that its widespread use, mostly by young people, is a threat to their privacy and to the national security.

 

Mr. Trump is absolutely right. TikTok has been engineered to collect vast amounts of weaponizable information from its users and transmit such data to China. Worse yet, the app can reportedly be remotely reconfigured to be even more of a Chinese black hole for unsuspecting Americans’ privacy.

           

Friend-of-China Microsoft is seeking to put an American front on this Chinese collection operation. Its CEO spoke with the President and says he’s going ahead with buy-out negotiations.

 

Mr. Trump must hold firm: TikTok has to be banned, not bailed out.

 

This is Frank Gaffney.