As lawmakers in Washington push to ban TikTok in the United States, angry constituents are lobbing death threats at them. These threats aren’t going to change minds in Washington, and could actually make the situation much worse. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: As lawmakers in Washington push to ban TikTok in the United States, angry constituents are lobbying death threats at ’em. These threats aren’t going to change the minds in Washington and it could actually make things worse. It’s gonna, anybody who gets a death threat says, really? You want to threaten me? Let’s mix this up. The pushback is incredible. First of all, TikTok story, it ain’t about China. It’s about Facebook and Instagram and all the competitors want TikTok out of the way because they’re just, it’s a flood to TikTok. And so best way to do it is get rid of ’em. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And that is exactly what’s happening here. Look, you’ve got the intelligence agencies here are the United States, there was a great report in the Intercept, Ken Klippenstein.
Mike Papantonio: By the way, that guy, I gotta say this. Ken Klippenstein is one of the best, I think he is one of the best progressive investigative journalists. I say progressive because if you look at his stuff, he doesn’t take a side. I mean, Klippenstein takes it right down the middle, but when he does an investigation, you can sure count on the fact it’s good. Right?
Farron Cousins: Oh, he’s absolutely phenomenal. And so what he’s got here is that these intelligence agencies are also admitting, listen, we don’t exactly have evidence that TikTok is really connected in any way with the Chinese government, but you know, you could imagine what it would be like if it were, and they could get your personal data. I mean, they could get your location. The same thing that the phone in our pocket is doing to us right now, TikTok might be able to do, and we’re supposed to be concerned about that, but not Apple or Meta or any of the other places.
Mike Papantonio: Look, China right now could buy everything that these politicians are saying TikTok might do. Now, I love the use of words. Do you realize since this has been gone, there’s been no evidence at all. CIA has looked at it, FBI has looked at it in, NSA has looked at it. There’s been no evidence that’s presented to anybody that’s looking at this story in Washington that says, this is happening. The words are, this could happen. Be very afraid because this might happen. Be terrified because it’s possible this could happen. That’s all the wording, isn’t it? You gotta look at what these people are actually saying. They’re not saying this has happened, but this could happen. This is all being fed by the lobbyists from Facebook, lobbyists from Instagram. They’re pumping this up as big as they can. Right?
Farron Cousins: They are. And I will say, it is a shame that you do have these people that are calling in these death threats now, leaving these horrific voicemails because that doesn’t fix this situation at all. If anything, it makes these politicians more angry and only encourages them that, okay, we’re doing the right thing. Look at what TikTok has done to these people. Ordinary people now saying they wanna murder me. That’s the threat of TikTok. Like, don’t give them ammo. You know, there’s right ways to do these kinds of things, and there’s wrong ways and the death threats are wrong. Calling your members of Congress, leaving them normal voicemails, encouraging them not to ban this. That’s a great thing to do. Flood their voicemails if you have to, but keep it not illegal.
Mike Papantonio: What I love is they’re gonna promote propaganda. Okay. Hell, all you gotta do is call up Fox News if you wanna promote propaganda, call MSNBC, call CNN, give those producers who are too lazy to get to the truth of the story. Call them and give them propaganda. There’s no worse propaganda than Fox, MSNBC and CNN. And so all of a sudden they’re saying, we might have to worry about propaganda in the next election cycle if we don’t do this to China. Right?
Farron Cousins: I mean, we’ve got, there is so much propaganda in the United States right now, originating from this country, we don’t need to worry about other countries flooding us with propaganda or AI images that try to fool voters. That’s coming from here. The calls are coming from inside the house at this point, folks. The real threats are in this country, but our politicians don’t want to acknowledge it. They don’t want to acknowledge the threats that Facebook and Instagram and Twitter pose to youth, to election cycles, to misinformation in general. So all the ire is on TikTok to distract from the badness of the others.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. It’s being sold as a grave national security threat to America. And this cat calls up a senator, a Republican senator, okay, listen, if you ban TikTok, I will find you, hunt you down and shoot you. I mean, God almighty. Have we really gone this crazy? Yeah, I guess we have.
Farron Cousins: Ring of Fire founder and host of America’s Lawyer, Mike Papantonio has a new book came out this week called, “Suspicious Activity.” Like his other books before it, this book actually deals with real legal cases that Mike Papantonio has handled, but in a fictionalized way. The book follows the character of Nick Deketomis that Papantonio first introduced in his book, “Law and Disorder,” and it carries on the story that began in “Law and Disorder” through “Law and Vengeance,” “Law and Addiction,” “Inhuman Trafficking,” and now “Suspicious Activity.” This book, in particular, deals with the financial institutions that have helped launder money for terrorist organizations, which of course is a topic we have covered extensively here on Ring of Fire. So if you’re a follower of Mike Papantonio’s books, or if this is your first one, you can get your copy of “Suspicious Activity” now. Just go to MikePapantonio.com and place your order. And if you haven’t already, check out Mike’s other books, also available on MikePapantonio.com.
