‘A forced divestiture’: Rep Mike Gallagher discusses House bill aimed at separating TikTok from CCP control in ‘Fox & Friends’ interview

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Co-host Will Cain was joined by Rep Mike Gallagher (R-Wis) to discuss a new House bill aimed at the social media app TikTok, on the weekend episode of 'Fox & Friends'.

Developed by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, TikTok currently has almost 150 million users in the United States alone, according to Statista.

It has long been rumored that the app is sharing user information with the Chinese government.

The co-host said that outraged users of the application were calling lawmakers to oppose the bill, including his guest Rep Gallagher, who is the Chair of the House Select Committee on China and the one to introduce the bill.

Mike Gallagher clarifies intent of bill

Acknowledging that he received numerous calls from TikTok users in this regard, the Congressman stated, "The good news is for those users of TikTok, that our bill is not an outright ban, as TikTok has been lying and telling its users."

"It is a forced divestiture," he explained. "What we are requiring is that TikTok separate itself from Chinese Communist Party control which would allow for a better user experience going forward..."

Dangers posed by app highlighted

"The fact that TikTok forced a pop-up notification on all its users, had them enter their zip code and automatically call their representative - in some cases, kids threatening suicide on the phone with their representatives, one impersonating one of my colleague's son - shows you the dangers of this platform remaining under the control of ByteDance and the CCP," shared Gallagher.

"Imagine if you're voting on something like removing permanent normal trade relations with China, or authorizing force to defend Taiwan, and TikTok was pushing lies to its users and interfering in the legislative content," he added. "It kind of proves the concerns for us in the way they handled this."

When asked about pushback from donors and big billionaires on the bill, Gallagher said that he had not faced them personally to date. 

On March 7, a TikTok spokesperson issued a statement on the House bill which read, "This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs."