U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and 17 of his Republican colleagues called on President Joe Biden to delete his account on the Chinese-owned TikTok, the short-form video hosting service.
Biden’s presidential campaign during the Feb. 11 Super Bowl made its first post on TikTok, the social-media platform owned by ByteDance, a company controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
“TikTok endangers national security, and this concern is aggravated by the platform’s appeal to young people in the United States,” wrote Sen. Moran and the lawmakers in a Feb, 16 letter sent to the president. “We therefore urge you to delete your account and set a better example for the American people by restating that TikTok is a national security threat.”
Among the lawmakers who joined Sen. Moran in signing the letter were U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), who noted that over the past several years, officials from both sides of the aisle have cautioned Americans against downloading TikTok and worked to eliminate national security risks posed by the app.
The lawmakers also pointed out that Biden supported legislation banning TikTok from government devices.
“It is incredibly troubling… that you are now ignoring TikTok’s well-established national security risks,” they wrote. “How can the federal government warn Americans about the risks of this app if the Commander in Chief uses it, too? Why should government employees be expected to honor a ban on official devices when the president rebuts the core justification for the law? And why should Americans believe you will protect them from foreign threats, when your use of the platform suggests disregard for well-known national security threats?”
By downloading TikTok, Sen. Moran and his colleagues warned Biden that he is “setting a poor example for the American people, while making them less safe for the bargain.”