During portions of an interview with the Fox News Channel that took place on Thursday and was aired on Friday’s “Special Report,” 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump said “there’s a danger to banning” TikTok “with freedom of speech.” And “what can you do is, let them sell TikTok, let them sell it in the market, maybe get a good price, maybe not get a good price, I don’t know, but take it away from China control. But I think China controls Facebook,” as well.
Kurtz said, [relevant remarks begin around 2:30] “After the House voted to overwhelmingly ban TikTok if it doesn’t cut ties with its China-based parent company, Trump told Fox News why he no longer favors a government ban that he pushed as President on national security grounds, citing the free exchange of ideas.”
He then played a clip of Trump saying, “But there’s a danger to banning it with freedom of speech. I found Facebook to be extremely dishonest. And what would happen is, if you ban TikTok, if you take it away, we have a new concept, but if you take it away, those people are going to go into Facebook. And Facebook, in my opinion, was worse than TikTok by a lot.”
Kurtz then stated, “Trump, who recently met with philanthropist Jeff Yass, says he didn’t know the billionaire owns a stake in TikTok’s parent firm.”
He then played a clip of Trump saying, “[I]f you’re going to do it to TikTok, do it to Facebook, and what can you do is, let them sell TikTok, let them sell it in the market, maybe get a good price, maybe not get a good price, I don’t know, but take it away from China control. But I think China controls Facebook, also, because they have tremendous power in that company.”
More of the interview is set to air on Sunday’s “MediaBuzz.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett