Republican Who Led TikTok Ban Leaves Congress For Surveillance Firm #TYT

The congressman who led the charge onthe bill that could ban TikTok in the US, has announced he's leaving Congressto join the US based surveillance firm and defense contractor Palantir. Representative Mike Gallagher, whoselast day will be April 19th, has recently made news for introducing the bill thatwould force ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which is based in China,to sell the social media platform within 180 days of the bill being enacted. And that bill passed in the Houseearlier this month, and it currently awaits a vote in the Senate.

Palantir, Gallagher's soon to be employer,has been working behind the scenes in Congress, scaremongering over TikTokto help support Gallagher's bill. The Intercept, Sam Biddle reported thatPalantir's senior policy adviser, Jacob Helberg, has spoken to over 100 members ofCongress about TikTok to support the ban. As for Gallagher's new job, it'sunclear what Gallagher's title will be at the company or what his role will entail. The move is a major coup for Palantir,which has been tightening its relationship with the US Department of Defenseas its focus on Taiwan increases. But we decided to look into Gallagher'scampaign donations and here's what we.

Found during the current election cycle. Alex Karp, Palantir's CEO, gave Gallagherthe Max individual contribution. Same for Shyam Shankar, Palantir CTOAkash Genin, Palantir president Josh Harris, Palantir executive vice presidentand Douglas Filipponi, Palantir head of global defense. Since 2020, top Palantir staffhave given Gallagher over $55,000 in campaign contributions,and that includes a max contribution from Peter Thiel, whose Palantir, Palantirco-founder and he gave that in 2021. So it might not seem like a surprisethat Gallagher is being rewarded.

For doing Palantir's biddingwith a post-congress corporate gig because Palantir sees TikTok as a competitor. Because of the app's unique positionin the data collection marketplace, which is where Palantir operates. But more on that companybecause it really is a shadowy black box. It's very private. This from 2020. Palantir is well knownin the defense and policing worlds. Its product allows usersto better visualize data and is used by states the world over.

It has $1.2 billion in governmentcontracts, including 92 million with Ice, which carried out the border deterrenceoperation, considered a high priority for the Trump administration. The rise of Palantiris a dangerous development in the US. Its tools have mostly been deployedagainst immigrants and black communities. But that may change. As we saw in Portland,DHS is willing and able to carry out the whims of the presidentto enact terror on the general public. And Palantir's work with Iceillustrates this danger best.

Its tech has been used to carry outviolent workplace raids across the country. Genk. There's a couple factors here.I'm really curious for your take. First, you have the revolving door. Someone takes campaign contributions,does the company's bidding, gets rewarded after the fact? But also, what does Palantir'sultimate goal here do you think? Yeah.

So. And Marjorie Taylor Greeneactually enters this conversation in late breaking news that's happeningright now as she went after Gallagher. I'll explain that in a second. But first,to answer Jordan's two questions. First of all, let's note the ironythat this guy is against theoretical Chinese government spying of Americans.It's never been proven. Never shown. And China does not own TikTokto Chinese nationals. Own a percentage of TikTok.

So do a lot of Americans, includingthe top contributor to Donald Trump. And that's why Donald Trump reversed hisposition on TikTok and says, what ban? I didn't mean, man, now that I gotmillions of dollars from Jeff Yass. No, no, no, TikTok is A-ok.And that's how corruption works. That's the second part of the story. But so it's theoretical Chinese governmentspying on Americans. Terrible. Terrible, right? Actual proven US governmentspying on Americans and then using that against American citizens.

Okay, okay. Yay, Palantir. A lot of mainstream mediadon't give you honest news. We do. You know why? Because of you. Paid membership on YouTubemakes all the difference. Hit the join button belowand you become the hero that sustains us. And in Washington,no one even took note of that. We had to look into how much moneyhe's gotten from Palantir and all the different connectionsthat he has to him, because in Washington,.

They think that that's just Tuesday. Yeah. Oh, revolving door congressmandoes favors for this company. And by the way, maybe,is this in this case it's not competitors, but whatever bidding they have,I don't know if they care about TikTok does that for them, but much, much more. Early defense spending bills probablyhad funding that went to this company, as Ice funding that Jordanjust talked about, etc.. So Gallagher, likely voted and directed an.

Enormous amount of money to this company. And then they gave him tons of campaigndonations as we just showed you. And that's already legalized bribery. But now he's going to go work for themand then he's going to make millions very, very likely, as a lot of these formercongressmen do and former generals do. And no one is going to bat an eyelashin Washington, D.C. They're just going to look at it as like,oh, yeah, that's a congressman that did everything this company wanted. Then that company spieson American citizens.

By the way, you know,as far as we can tell from the reporting. And then now he's going to get paida ton of money from them because he was their boy, their servant in Congress. And that's normal.That's totally that's totally good. But tick tock. Tick, tick. Kids are Chinese. Communists are makingour kids dance on TikTok. They're making them dance. I say, okay, so this is the American mediaand American politics.

Now, you want to knowthe Marjorie Taylor Greene angle here? So she says Gallagher should beimmediately expelled from the house. Why is she upsetabout what Palantir is doing? No, of course she doesn't care. She's a fake populist. She doesn't care. She's like, oh, they're giving out money.Where where where? Right. So no, no, the thing she'sconcerned about is, he's. If he had if he, steps down,I think before April 8th,.

Then they have an election right away,a special election to replace him. But he's stepping down April 19th,so they will not have a special election. So the Republicans will not have that seatat all until the end of this terme. And she thinks that he's doing thatas an act of betrayal against the Republican Party. I mean, this guy didn't even vote toimpeach, Homeland Security Chief Mayorkas when he hadn't committed any crimes. Who cares about crimes or misdemeanors?Who cares? We don't care about facts.

This Gallagher guyseems to care about facts. Heretic.He should have voted to impeach Mayorkas. And he's not listening to what Trump says. And that's unacceptable, right?So she wants to kick him out now. But I get it. Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with herin any of those positions, but she's not wrong about the dates. And my guess is that Gallagher did waitafter the deadline so they wouldn't have an extra vote in Congress.

So that gives you a senseof where his head is at. And that one I appreciate. And, and I hope that Marjorie TaylorGreene just screams into the void, but they don't actually do anything about it. I think the point you madeabout none of this is really about spying. And that's not what TikTok is, is doing. It's not the Chinese governmentthat the xenophobia around that app is really alarming because as we sawduring Covid, when people were pushing, oh, the Chinese lab theory.

And even if it was true,that doesn't like who cares? It's none of it's good. And what it did was it inspiredanti-Asian hate crimes here. And as we continue to ratchet up tensionswith China, we get closer to I mean, we might we basically already are in a coldwar with China, but we certainly don't want a hot war with Taiwan as a proxy. And that seems to bewhat Palantir is agitating for. This is part of a broader scheme. I talked to Sam Biddle at TheIntercept earlier today in preparation for.

This story, and I just get a gut check. Is this something that they might wantto acquire if ByteDance is forced to sell, that would be an inroad in the datacollection marketplace, he said. Maybe, maybe, maybe not. They don't wantthey might not want that headache. But really what they wantis to continue pushing, ratcheting up tensions with China because that'sthe that serves their ultimate goal, which is more government contracts. The more paranoia, the more fearthat they can instill in Congress and have.

The anti-China hawks, parrot in Congress,the easier it is to sell increased overreach into people's lives, increased,and willingness to give up their civil liberties in favor of more spying. I mean, Snowden sounded the alarm in 2013about the American spying apparatus that he was deemed a traitorfor even talking about it. But an app where kids dance and post songsand kids talk about politics. I mean, granted,there's people of all ages on there. I think, Jake, you're on there,but they're they're worried about spying there and data collection there.

But companies were giving a back doorto the NSA, like the Five Eyes were sharing all this information. Oh, I can't spy on you.Hey, Canada, can you spy on this person? Then give us the information. Oh, hey, Australia, can you spy onthis person and give us the information? They don't care about spying. They don't careabout your civil liberties. And they just want to continueratcheting up tensions with China. Because for them,it's more government contracts.

Okay, let's not, miss that. Jordan said. People of all ages are on TikTok.The kids plus Jake. Yeah, all the demographics. Okay, now look, I am on TikTok,both, at Shenhua and, I think it's at Shenhua or geographical.That's hilarious. I already forgot such a boomer moveto forget your own handle anyways. But mainly on on The Young Turks. But I tell you that because ifthe Chinese are spying in on me, I'm not a I don't want that. Right.

So I have no reason to root for it. I just no one's ever proved it.Everybody just says it. No one's ever showna single piece of evidence about it. But by the way,Facebook has all of our information. Google has all of our information,and no one cares. So let's, you know, and oh, theChinese are turning our kids progressive. I got news for you. They were already progressiveand they were already dancing. So last thing that you might not know.

There's also a financial angle herebecause of this constant, pressure from the US government against TikTok,its current market value is suppressed. And if they're forced to sell,who are they going to be forced to sell to US companies and those companies, thenthe minute they buy it, the percentage that is of the Chinese citizen investorsthat would be forced to sell. Then the price will immediately go up. So there's actually US financial interestin forcing the government, US government forcing a sale of this company so theycan make hundreds of millions of dollars. So don't lose trackof that corruption too.

So if you think that it's becauseTed Cruz and Joe Biden are really worried about the Chinese getting our dataand and turning us into a country that's footloose, I got news for you. It's got nothing to do with that. And it has everything to dowith all the different factors we just explained to you. All right. Thanks for watching this free clipof Old School. Don't forget to become a Twit member todayfor the rest of the show.

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