Kellyanne Conway, former campaign manager and Senior Advisor to former President Donald Trump, is advocating for the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok as Congress threatens to ban the app.
Conway has confirmed that she’s working with the conservative lobbying firm Club for Growth, which is backed by billionaires Jeff Yass (an early investor in TikTok) and Richard Uihlein (of the office supply company Uline), and co-founded by Harlan Crow, who is being questioned by the Senate about his connections with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
This is not just appalling and disappointing, it is shockinghttps://t.co/oYcJX14lEb
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) March 10, 2024
U.S. Representatives Mike Gallagher (R-WI), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, introduced the bipartisan bill to prevent access to the social media app TikTok in the U.S., if its Chinese parent company ByteDance doesn’t divest from it.
While Gallagher demands that TikTok end “its relationship with CCP-controlled ByteDance,” TikTok argues the legislation tramples the First Amendment rights of its 170 million users in America.
[Related: Kevin O’Leary Says He’ll Buy TikTok]
Conservative political pundit Mark Levin, host of the Fox News show Life, Liberty & Levin, reacted to the news of Conway advocating for the Chinese-owned app, by writing: “This is not just appalling and disappointing, it is shocking.”
Levin has said repeatedly on his show that America’s greatest threat is China and has criticized President Biden for “not doing anything.” (Note: Biden has said he would sign Gallagher’s bill if it passed Congress.)
Note: Conway said in a statement, echoing the TikTok argument above, that “alienating” 170 million monthly U.S. users is “draconian” and “ill-advised.”
She questioned the merit of the Committee’s bill and said: “If you want to hold China accountable, why are you starting with TikTok, and not the origins of the COVID crisis, the fentanyl crisis, the persecution of Uyghurs, and the vulnerability of Taiwan.”
Politico reports that Conway “has brought up TikTok to [Donald] Trump since she started as a consultant for Club for Growth.” The former President, who also sought to ban the app while in office, has switched sides on the issue.
