compensation of employees, his own relationship went by dance employees and members of the chinese communist parties a really detailed questions on tick tock, chinese ties, and also really detailed questions on the technology itself. you know, we heard lawmakers talk about bite code and about neural network architectures and artificial intelligence. and that's, that's pretty unprecedented for the u. s. congress, which my years ago when they were grilling mark zuckerberg, had absolutely no clue what they were talking about. yeah, i mean, it really was, is an about face of, it's like the roles were reversed today when you, when you compare it to how it was when zuckerberg was sitting there and talking to members of congress. we know that law makers now are not happy with social media platforms in general, but tick tock it special because it also happens to be chinese own. the chinese communist party has access. it could have access to a 150000000 u. s. hearts and minds as what the law makers said, talk to me about this danger that a members of congress were talking about today. i think that's a great

times in an all the work that we do together that we must constantly distinguish between the chinese communist party and the chinese people themselves. who have always been the parties primary victim and now i would like to introduce a joint video that the rank member and i put together to help set the stage for the hearing. without objection the video shall be entered into the record and the clerk will play the video. >> forward, chairman totalitarian will collect industrialize impossible quotas for a bureaucracy with the chinese countryside. tens of millions suffered excruciating death -- >> 1966 a reason from society through struggle sessions and the public exhibitions. over a hundred people were slaughtered some were buried alive all in the cases of over 130 people literally eaten -- 1989, students protest -- [inaudible conversations] they storm the city threw their bodies in front to slow them. thousands of protesters and innocent citizens were killed. 1997 the honk hong kong for 50 years and in 2020 the national security law make that promise into farce journalist are jailed the opposition is

the chinese communist party can compel companies based in beijing, like tiktok, to share data with the communist government to existing beijing law or coercion. national security experts are sounding the alarm, warning the chinese communist government could require tiktok to compromise security, maliciously access american user data, promote pro communist propaganda, and undermine american interests. disinformation campaigns could be launched by the chinese communist government through tiktok, which has already become rife with misinformation and disinformation, illegal activities, and hate speech. a recent report found that 20% of tiktok search results on prominent news topics contain misinformation. social media's profitability depends on growth and engagement. more eyes on content for longer time leads to longer revenue generation in advertising dollars. addictive algorithms are fine-tuned for growth and engagement without necessarily taking into account potential harm to users. children and teens are particularly vulnerable. frequent online views of interactive media on digital dev

the chinese communist party is afraid of its people most. people have access to internet, free flow of the information, then they would know the truth. and the truth is powerful on its own. the lies the communist party has built up over many decades crumble, and that will help the opposition forces to organize together and then to fight more effectively against the chinese communist party's ideals or history. another way to help the chinese, i mean, to counter, is to fund the programs for supporting journalists and rights lawyers. the two professions are trained for truth and justice, but they will heavily repress inside china. so if the u.s. gives more funding for the programs to train the organizations, the professions, it would be great. the reciprocity principle and fairness principle i would also advocate that if the chinese government doesn't allow high-tech companies such as facebook, google, youtube, twitter to have presence inside china, the u.s. should certainly have the same right to block tiktok presence in the u.s. many congress

>> the communist party does not have voting rights in bytedance. >> chinese communist party members, different question. do the founders control the voting bloc of bytedance's shares? >> i do know that the founder himself is not a member of the communist party, but we don't know the political affiliation of our employees because that's not something we ask. >> does the chinese government know the political affiliation of their chinese citizens? >> i cannot answer the question on their behalf. >> i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. yield to the gentlelady from new hampshire, miss kuster. >> thank you, madam chair. i want to say i agree with all of the comments of many of my colleagues, that we need to take a closer look at whether tiktok poses a national security risk. for today i will focus my limited time on how tiktok can better protect its youngest users. i think a number of us have identified as parents today and have serious concerns as we relate to you. just this week i heard from a parent in my district in nashua, new hampshire whose child was served harmful content on tik

of chinese originpe experience oppression d human rights at the hands of the authoritarian chinese communist party and anti- asian harassment and discrimination is too prevalent globally and here at home. so i also want to be abundantly clear that we doo not condone ay anti- chinese or bigotry. we must condemn any act o of an- asian discrimination in the strongest possible terms. but with the chinese but the chinese communist party are increasingly hostile to democracy and human rights. ccp was something more to become divided and prejudiced but they will be disappointed. instead will outcompete the ccp by ensuring america remains a beacon of freedom for the world and by continuing to provide safe harbor for those flake oppression and violence. that's of a strength nation and our economy. i look for them to hearing from today's witnesses and the yield back. thank you ranking member i would ask the rice reach right hand. you psalms for the testimony he would give before the committee on homeland security with task workers will be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth so help you god? th

the murder of, the outright murder of 25 to 50,000 to 50,02s by the chinese communist party were organsting. does anybody doubt that number? there's also evidence that you can schedule your organ transplant. basically an organ on demand. now, i find the chinese communist party not only to be repressive and brutal, it's also barbaric. and if we don't do something about it, if we don't stop this, then my fear is my children and my grandchildren will one day face the world where they are going to be dominated by this party. so you may be as a bellwether of what could happen to this country, to this world if we don't take action today because the only thing the chinese communist party reacts to is action. not rhetoric, action. my time is up and i yield back. >> i want to thank all the witnesses for their incredible testimony and the phenomenal q and a that we just had to. i want to thank the committee members for their thoughtful contributions. tonight we have been witnessed to soul chilling evidence of crimes against humanity. we've heard from experts who showed the policy of forced steri

this is clearly not about the chinese citizens, both in china or the united states. in the communist partye. makes it very difficult and onto ther doctors points you have to do it very clear to say it all the time. i thought about chinese citizens. mostly importantly the departmet will use that against us at every single point spread is a double edge sword. the more we don't set the more the communist regime we don't set a mission is denial but it is real. >> i will close by saying this is yet another reason why it is important to focus on combining the rise of racially motivated extremism to the homeland as well. thank you all very much for your testimony. >> a gentleman yieldsow not recognize. >> thank you chairman paid your capacity as a director of the national counterintelligence and security center of billion a year. we describe the impact that theft has on the everyday american like people back in myo district? >> to make this distinct, as i mentioned in my oral remarks real impact is about 4000 or $6000 per american family after taxes. it is a real cost to the american homeowner an

origin experience oppression and human rights violation of the hands of the authoritarian chinese communist party and anti- discrimination is pretty prevalent here at home so want to be clear we do not condone any anti- chinese or asian bigotry and must condemn any acts of anti- asian discrimination the strongest possible terms. our struggle is not with the chinese people but rather the chinese communist party that is increasingly possible to democracy and human rights. the ccp wants nothing more to see americans become divided and prejudiced but they will be disappointed. week will outcompete by ensuring america remains beacon of freedom to the world and continuing to provide safe harbor to this violence and that's how we strengthen our nation and economy. i look forward to hearing from today's witnesses and i go back. >> opening statements may be submitted for the record. i'm pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses before this important topic. witnesses please rise and raise your right hand you solemnly swear the testimony will get before the home is security in the united states hou

think what we heard there is an incdible breadth of knowledge and expience about what the chinese communist party has been doing f several decades, what they are currently doing wh threats as the wake-up call moment happened several wee ago the chinese surveillance balloon, it's incumbent upon us to really start uncovering these threats and focusing on this and from what we've heard from the panel, thank you for you opening statements we could have several hearings on the individual objects that appreciate the time here. i'll start with mr. of anita, when you look at the ownership of pperty in the united states and going back to u.s. farmland in the last 20 years jumped from about $81 million in 2010 to 1.9 billion at the end of 2021 and moreover, widely reported a lot of the prc linked ownership is adjacent to government facilities, military facilities in the united states. can you provide insight to why that is, what the goal is and what they are doing with those? >> thank you for the question. i will try hard to stay in the room here but it's a mprehensive plan that goes back about a decade, t

the chinese communist party issues. the chinese communist party is increasingly _ issues. party is increasingly trying _ issues. the chinese communist party is increasingly trying to _ issues. the chinese communist party is increasingly trying to control - issues. the chinese communist party is increasingly trying to control or - is increasingly trying to control or at the very best influence china's private companies to make sure their interests are aligned with those of the state. many of those companies work with your members. how difficult does the blurring of the line between the chinese state and private enterprise make life for your members? it is private enterprise make life for your members?— your members? it is a very complicated _ your members? it is a very complicated market - your members? it is a very complicated market and i your members? it is a veryl complicated market and you your members? it is a very - complicated market and you are right. in the chinese government started to take a bigger role in private enterprises, it is safe that we watched very care

i think there's the conflict between the chinese communist party and the free world broadly defined. and i'm not afraid to use that term. i think they want to re can't recreate international order and their authoritarian image that enables might, makes right authoritarianism in the south china sea and taiwan allows them to do whatever the heck they want to the weavers. so i, for one think that's a world that i don't want to live in. and i think the more of the united states in europe and others can band together to deter aggression and speak truth to authoritarian power. the better is this moment of high tension. is it in some way linked to the born ukraine as washington has been giving strong warnings to biking . for instance, not to supply ammunition to russia. ukraine, excuse me, russia and china are closer than they've been since the 900 fifties. that according to the u. s. intelligence community china has been echoing putin's talking points, an attempt to justify this brutal and moral unprovoked invasion. china has already been supporting russia in some ways and providing non le

algorithms on a social media app are not controlled by an adversarial regime, such as the chinese communist party. in this case of tiktok, it is owned by a company called bytedance and bytedance is beholden to the chinese communist party in those two respects. they're concerned about big tech, but it is a bridge too far when you talk about their children or even their own user data or their content being ultimately controlled by the ccp. >> congressman, last year i spoke with the head of u.s. southern command who told me that china invested more than $15 million in latin america, just in the last couple of years. much of it on infrastructure, ports, telecommunications. what do you think china is doing in latin america, and should the united states be looking at that more closely? >> absolutely. and i think that's going to be a big topic of discussion even within our committee. they have something called the belt and road initiative, jose. and this bri initiative that the chinese communist party has initiated is an effort to provide developmental help for a lot of countries that are struggling aro

so climate change has now trumped american security with respect to the chinese communist party. o ways, maria, you know this. the chance of the chinese communist party actually improving the climate of the globe is zero and, second, when you put climate change as your priority, you shut in american energy, american gas and positive the sill fuels, you shut in american innovation and technology, and you allow the chinese communist party to do precisely what you described. they'll replace our currency, they'll replace american workers, they'll destroy jobs here at home, and we needn't let that happen. we similarly need to exhibit -- simply need to exhibit the kind of strength we kid in the trump administration. maria: but can we exhibit that now after depleting so many of our stockpiles? ron johnson says we are not at the readiness place that we need to be because of the last couple of years of not only sending money and ammunition elsewhere, but also cutting back on defense. >> well, senator johnson has that partly right. i respect him a great deal, but we have a different view. i

this is psychological warfare by the chinese communist party against the youth of our country. kennedy: so why is tiktok so averse to having a u.s. buyer? you know, i know the chinese communist party has pushed back against that, and they don't want any federal interference with hair the app. with their app. but it's going to the, it has now reached critical mass with both parties. so is there any way tiktok can be saved for the 150 million people who use it? >> well, there is, and that is simply if the, if the parent company, if bytedance were to have chinese communist party divest of all interest in that company, divest of all stock, of any kind of ownership in that company and it goes under the ownership of other people, americans, then okay. i'll be okay with it. but until that happens, i'm going to be voting in favor of banning tiktok altogether. no longer should the chinese communist party be practicing psychological warfare on our youth. and, you know, two-thirds of all the youth in america are on this app, and and they spend an average of 95 minutes a day on this app. th

i want to make sure people understand when i speak about the chinese communist party or the governmentina, i don't have anything against the chinese people. i just hate communism. i hate communism because i came from cuba and i had to leave because of a communist state, which a lot of things i'm hearing are happening in china, not the same because i haven't heard of genocide happening in cuba but -- can you name me the american companies that are benefiting from the forced labor and atrocities committed on the uyghur people in china? somebody said we need to name names here. what american companies are profiting from the suffering of the uyghur people? >> it includes nike, coca-cola, intel, solar panels, manufacturing, some european companies, we talk about 80 global grants. part of the reason the lpa have not been able to stop the forced labor practices in china. >> how do they skirt laws prohibiting use of forced labor etc. and operate in the united states? >> i think it was last year, late 2021, business representatives. they acknowledge human rights abuses against the uyghur people

shows that hunter biden was making and manipulating multi million dollars deals with the chinese communist partya movie, people would say, yeah, it's not credible. it's just -- there is too many twists and turns. you have got these chinese characters named ho and ye and israeli dr. luft who is involved. gets charged with gun running even though he said he never dealt with arms. the u.s. puts him in prison for a while there are so many crazy things about how this is going down and the press, once again, i blame them, because they just turned, well, let me tell you this, they turn one eye away from the whole story. >> todd: nicely done. >> ashley: that was a good one. we are expecting the trump grand jury to reconvene today after manhattan alvin bragg abruptly canceled's today's hearing. pushback to indict trump the district attorney is having trouble convincing the grand jury on potential charges due to the weakness of the case. your thoughts, governor? >> well, if you can not get an indictment of donald trump in new york where they hate him, run by the most partisan left wing democrats, then may

we don't sell _ chinese communist party. se communist party. - don't sell data to data brokers. don't sell data to data brokers-— don't sell data to data brokers. , , , brokers. the issue is whether the company _ brokers. the issue is whether the company tiktok - brokers. the issue is whether the company tiktok would i brokers. the issue is whether- the company tiktok would commit to not— the company tiktok would commit to not selling it started to anyone _ to not selling it started to anyone and just using it for its own— anyone and just using it for its own purposes internally. | its own purposes internally. i can its own purposes internally. can get its own purposes internally. i can get back to you on the details. ., , details. he denied the details and claims — details. he denied the details and claims all _ details. he denied the details and claims all us _ details. he denied the details and claims all us data - details. he denied the details and claims all us data is - details. he denied the details| and claims all us

twitter recently removed about 24,000 accounts that were affiliated with the chinese communist party were spreading various messages related to, for example, t chinese government's role in covid-19, the responsto the hong kong democracy protests. we know the chinesgovernment is engaged in propaganda in general. we just don't know if it is happening on tiktok. ben: briefly, the white house is perhaps pushing for an outright ban across the u.s. could that happen? >> if the united states were to ban tiktok more broadly, not just on government phones, but for all americans, this could raise serious free expression and free speech concerns. any ban is likely to see lawsuits from tiktok, other users, as well. many americans have actually built livings off of tiktok. influencers use tiktok to earn a living. also many younger americans have used tiktok as a creative outlet to share music and dancing and art. i would expect any larger ban of tiktok would experience legal concerns. it is unclear what the outcomes of those challenges might be. ben: let's get the latest on yesterday's top story,

chinese law passed in 2017 requires every chinese company, bytedance that owns tiktok, that at any point turn over to the communist party of china data or anything else they want. now, i got problems with facebook or twitter or google, but it is definitely different when you are talking about a chinese company that ultimately has to answer to the communist party. and there's two-fold problem here. 1, 150 million americans data harvest, tiktok is addictive, learns a lot about you, i don't want that residing as a tool for the communist party. and also the videos can be manipulated in terms of the content. and people say what about all the people who are social influencers, a lot of creative stuff on tiktok. i think the market will provide another alternative. a company that comes out of china, russia, iran, north korea, ought to be a higher level of scrutiny. >> john: senator, i was struck by the bipartisan tone the members took in this hearing today. they were pretty much unified in their condemnation of what tiktok could be doing. but congressman bowman of new york seems to be at odds with members of his own party as we

our nation has watched as the xhaens communist party has grown -- chinese communist party has grown in influence. whether through tiktok, confucius institutes or even spy balloons. the chinese communist party's goal is clear, infiltrate and undermine america's economic and national security. as the c.c.p.'s influence continues to grow, its threat to our national security does, too. we must actively seek ways to decouple our economy, end our dependence on chinese supply chains and bolster our national security. china is our greatest foreign threat and it's time we begin to act accordingly. i'd like to wish a happy birthday to joseph and matthew m martino of connecticut who are my nevada use. happen -- nephews. happy birthday. congratulations to kyle and joel jacobs on their birth, sierra rose, on saturday. i hope you're able to get some sleep. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. sherman, for five minutes. mr. sherman: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is

at least for today the chinese communist party is providing lethal assistance to ukraine almost certainly. china is getting energy at a discount price. the chinese are getting a 15 to 20% discount on each barrel of oil allowing them to continue to dump their products here in america. the biden administration allowed the chinese and russians to come together and presents an a risk to every american citizen. >> dana: peter doocy talked with john kirby. >> when president biden met with xi i want to make sure every country abides by the international rules of the road. does he think china is abiding by the international rules of the road? >> we have significant concerns about china's behavior particularly their coercive and aggressive behavior but other areas we believe there is room for cooperation. you have to keep the lines of communication open. >> dana: does that present a good point, it is important to have lines of communication be open. the spy balloon. you couldn't get an answer out of china. >> this is pretty typical of this administration putting process over substance. the ability

americans, according to congressmen, this is precisely does tiktok in america on behalf of the chinese communist partymericans. anyone watching this today should know tiktok is the chinese communist party's weapon to spy it's up to you to manipulate what you see and use it in the future in vain chapter. the social networks tried to convince american politicians that tiktok in america is an american company, not a chinese one, and by the end of this year, all data of american users will be on servers in the united states, that is, they will be protected. by american law, joe, in principle, could assure congress that he still didn’t believe that your platform should be banned in anything. today you are ready to say anything to avoid it, but we are not let's buy. you're celebrating 150 million us users on tiktok, and that only highlights the need for congress to act. this means that the chinese communist party can get information about 150 million americans, the united states already tried to ban tiktok during the presidency of donald trump, throwing apple and google out of social networks on social netw

the chinese communist party has declared them to be an evil cult, fit for butchering. mr. speaker, in may of last year, i chaired an absolutely chilling congressional hearing at the tom lantos human rights commission entitled "forced organ harvesting in china: examining the evidence." the china tribunal, chaired by sir jeffrey nice, and this is the man who prosecuted at the tribunal for the former yugoslavia, who i chaired. he conducted the world's first independent legal analysis of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in china. sir jeffrey nice testified at inmy hearing and said, quote, forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout china on a significant scale, and he said that the practitioners had been one and probably the main source of organ supply. he says each qualify as a group for purposes of the crime of genocide. ethan guttman, victims of communism memorial foundation, testified that the kilgore matters guttman report of 2016 estimated china's total transplant volume -- this is forced transplantations -- as 60,000 to 100,000 an

we can debate if it's good or bad but the chinese governmentde communist party, judge jerry executioner. there's no wind between where the chinese government operates or chinese government operates, they do it all as a communist party so there's no real comparison. and paul is right we allowed it happen. they have brought over a billion people live in poverty and they the done it on the backs of system is corrupt the system that rewards a communist party leadership in a system that represses its own people. even though there've been millions looked out the poverty they don't offer mobility and at the end of the day it's a repression of regime that's exploited abroad. b from albany on a republican line, bill, go ahead. >> thank you. mr. jaffer thanks for being on and i agree with you and it's refreshing to hear someone speak so honestly about this. for years asso he said the unitd states and as far as trading with china they just let things go and for example all of our pharmaceuticals and our ingredients 97% of them are made in china. if they wanted to stop sendingst us pills the daily

one of them received millions of dollars from friends of the chinese communist party. >> todd: brookes with the latest peer and speak the house oversight committee with bank of america for more than a decade of financial records with business associates and so far we learned the identity of one of those partners rob walker who work with the president's son, brothd two business on a joint venture with sign a hawk holdins with a partnership with ce x and the chinese energy company. oversight committee chairman james comer rebuild what he learned from the records turned over by bank of america. listen. >> we got his account. we confirmed that account around two months after joe biden left the office of vice president received a $3 million fire from two individuals directly associated with the chinese communist party. at the very next day after that wire was received, though walker account started transferring money into three different biden family member accounts. >> the democrat congressman jimmy, the ranking member is dismissing james comer's subpoena to dismiss bank of america and wr

we are not in that world, as the chinese communist party has demonstrated. we have a market failure and we are starting from behind. if we can have public financing to leverage private investment, we will have more success than the chinese communist party because we have more entrepreneurship, more opportunity, and there is not state control. there may be state financing come and this makes a difference. we have seen this with the chips act already. a small amount of money has leveraged $200 billion in private investment in the united states. host: that from the hearing last night. this is ron in illinois, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a good example that probably all the american people in this country can identify with. it is the publishers clearinghouse vendetta. it is one of the biggest ponzi scheme's that has ever been known in this country and i along with other people have been naive enough to fall for it. their prizes. all the prizes you can win, $5,000 a week for life. host: how does this get me to china? caller: the way gets u

dan: it appears we are emulate the chinese communist party more and more every day. we thought bringing them into the world trade organization would make them for capitalistic. but it's the other way around. cameras on every corn and digital currencies, targeting parents as domestic terrorists at school boards. we are becoming like them. not the other way around. >> if you study with mao did in the chinese revolution, it's exactly what's happening now. there is china envoy, they almost envy the power xi jinping has. he doesn't have to go through separation of power or consents of the governed. the new way of doing things, we know what we want, what could we do if we had that much power. the amount of envy america has towards the chinese communist model. they want to get rid of the constitutional order and bring together a ccp order. the oligarchs do well but the rest of the public are controlled. dan: a lot of people have seem larry fink, ceo of blackrock talking about how he idolizes china. democracies are messy. you know what's not messy? totalitarianism because th

. >> bigger coup for the chinese communist party if tiktok continues to operate in the united states. it gives the chi chichinese communist party ability to manipulate our social discourse. tiktok is still growing and one of the most powerful companies in history. >> congressman barr, what's taking us so long? every parent should delete tiktok from their kids' phones. that was three years ago. >> again, just like what congressman banks said, it is nice to see democrats see the threat for what it is. and tiktok is a threat and kudos to secondary pompeo for calling it out years ago when democrats were not on board. this is an all encompassing threat, we have seen for decades now, economic aggression from the chinese communist party whether it is unfair trade practices or human rights violations and the aggressive hostility towards the democracy in taiwan and the ripping up of the international treaty with hong kong. one of the under appreciated dimensions of the aggression from the ccp against the west is economic war warfare. this select committee is going to take a close look and not

washington this week with lawmakers sounding the alarm about the dangerous threats from the chinese communist party the ccp is counting on us to be divided we must rise to the occasion and prove them wrong. >> chinese communist party is a threat to the united states. >> is been more clear than ever that china has a plan to replace united states and the working added every day. >> some of us have been bringing the alarm bell for decades on microchips the tide rolled out and hit israel and the united states of america and the greatest single threat facing the american people and democracy around the world. >> anthony blinken did not meet with his chinese counterpart the state department said there will be call to china the coming weeks joining me to assess the situation house foreign affairs committee member michael waltz. congressman is good to see you this weekend, thank you so much for being here. i want to get your take on the threat of communist china and you are among the first to raise this issue but is this a administration doing enough about it? >> are taking some steps they added another 37

of making sure that we are not subject to, you know, potential adversarial actions by the chinese communist partiespher wray testified before the intelligence committee on which i sit on wednesday and he made it very clear that he could not rule out that the chinese communist party for instance directed tiktok and employees recently to track the location information of journalists who are writing negative stories about tiktok. nor could he rule out that tiktok was using various means of quote/unquote heeding or pushing certain content at the direction of the chinese communist party. so this is very disturbing. >> so for the millions of americans who use and love this app, help us understand why so many lawmakers including yourself are so concerned about tiktok and believe that at a minimum there need to be some new restrictions? >> sure. so tiktok is owned by a company called byte dance. byte dance is a chinese company that has to abide by two laws, at least two laws that are problematic. the first is that byte dance is required to comply with an intelligence law in the people's republic of china t

the chinese communist party, but at l relationship of the chinese . t this juncture, similar with what . communist party, but at this . juncture, similar with what jack said about _ juncture, similar with what jack said about politicians _ juncture, similar with what jack said about politicians in- juncture, similar with what jack said about politicians in the - juncture, similar with what jack said about politicians in the uk| juncture, similar with what jack. said about politicians in the uk not using _ said about politicians in the uk not using that — said about politicians in the uk not using that platform, _ said about politicians in the uk not using that platform, i— said about politicians in the uk not using that platform, i believe - using that platform, i believe you're — using that platform, i believe you're going _ using that platform, i believe you're going to— using that platform, i believe you're going to find _ using that platform, i believe you're going to find a - using that platform, i believe you're going to find a similarl using tha

the associated press reports more than three board seats is held by a chinese communist party member,y to study xi jinping's speeches y according o courts and i read through the testimony and he said something very interesting here. he says we do not believe the that a ban that hurts american small businesses damages the country's economy and silences the voices of over 150 million americans, you know, et cetera, is a solution. there's your problem right there. i mean, silencing the voices of over 150 million americans, i don't think we need to have that kind of influence in this country when it comes to a party that's -- a company that's linked to bytedance, one of the a.i. giants. that kind of reach, that's what our lawmakers will be talking about, the dangers of having that kind of reach into society. 150 million americans on this platform and he's basically saying it's too big to change. no, i think you have to stop this before it becomes even big r. it's odd he sort of references the bytedance as a global company and brings up as a point of information that neil shen of china is

disclosing our financials today. >> prior to today's hearing did anyone affiliated with the chinese communist party discuss this hearing senior or other tiktok senior management. >> since i've been ceo of this company i have not had discussion with chinese government officials. >> what about the chinese communist party itself. have any of those officials discussed this with you? >> like i said i have not had any discussion with chinese government officials. i don't know the political affiliation of everybody i speak to so i can't verify the statement. >> let me ask you a question in a different correction. a few weeks ago this committee had a field hearing in mcallen, texas on the issue of fentanyl and illegal immigration. and one of our witnesses brandon judd, a 25 year border patrol agent said that all social media platforms play a role in illegal immigration and one of the ways cartels advertise their services throughout the world and convince people to put themselves in their hands and come to the united states. the cartels all use social media platforms. are you aware of this phenomenon? >> an