No Tiktok on Government Devices Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCOTT of Florida. Madam President, first I want to thank my colleague from Missouri. We got here at the same time, and both of us saw the dangers of Communist China, the dangers of the Communist Party of China, and the dangers of the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Xi.

We have watched a million Uighurs get put into prison just for their religion. We have watched American companies have their technology stolen. We have watched as American jobs have been stolen. One of the goals that both of us had when we came up here was to stop this.

We had the opportunity last year to visit the protesters in Hong Kong, and we got to hear from them firsthand their concern about what Communist China would be doing to take away their basic rights, rights granted to them in the turnover from Great Britain to China, on paper. But, as we know, the Communist Party and the General Secretary of the Communist Party don't care about any of these things.

We have watched the Communist Party use drones for surveillance. We have watched, as my colleague has said, TikTok become a worldwide phenomenon. It is an opportunity for the Communist Party of China to surveil all of our citizens, whatever of our citizens are using it.

So I want to thank my colleague for his effort in this regard--not just this but all of his efforts to hold Communist China accountable. There is a lot of work to do. As we know, this pandemic was much worse because of the actions of the Communist Party of China.

So this is a commonsense thing to do. We should not have TikTok on Federal Government phones. This is a good first step, but there is a lot more to do to continue to hold Communist China accountable and to make sure we all, as Americans, understand that we are now in a cold war. This is not a cold war that America started. This is a cold war that the Communist Party of China started, led by the General Secretary of the Communist Party, Xi, and we are going to have to continue every day to focus on how we prevent them from surveilling us.

Another thing Americans can do besides making sure you are not using TikTok is making sure you are buying American products and don't buy products from Communist China.

You will do more to hold them accountable. The more we can do things like that, it will change the dynamics, and, hopefully, maybe eventually Communist China will come to their senses and stop being an adversary and eventually be merely a competitor.

I yield back to my colleague from Missouri.

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