surrounding tiktok.

then we will have a conversation about the threat the chinese communistw he is leading in congress to take this complex issue headm on in a way that makes some progress. congressman kevin hern represents oklahoma's first district. minute? my mom will give me a hard time if i do that.

kevi on an air force base and gained early appreciation for the sacrifices that military families make. he really has a quintessential american background. an architectural drafting certificate at a career technology school, she used to work and pay for his engineering degree. after undergrad, kevin went on to work as an aerospace engineer for rock will international. kevin was out of work when it rocked the industry. he saved purchases for his mcdonald's restaurant by operating small businesses writing computer programs. in 1997 he and bought his first mcdonald's restaurant in north little rock arkansas. he purchased two mcdonald's restaurants.he grew that organir the next decade owning 24 mcdonald's restaurants that employed thousands of people in

nohern■y oklahoma. congressman hearn has worked because every aisle, serving in various leadership positions within the mcdonnell system. years in the national leadership team that represented all 3500 plus u.s. franchises. eight years as the -- she will have to tell me because i don't have it here. >> and charge of franchise relations. rebeccah: in addition to mcdonald's he has been a successful entrepreneur and banking, manufacturing development, multiple technology companies in sports publishing. this is so important for our topic today because the congressman really has first-hand experiences in all of these different ways that small businesses operate, and the importance of the united states having strong and sound institutions for technology, aerospace, our ability to produce and make our own foode n

people. really has some really interesting and diverse backgrounds. he currently serves on the wayse republican study committee were members of congress agree on basic principles and then work together to collaborate with initiatives for the congress. last i checked, there are 173 members of the committee. n: 180 now. rebeccah: 180 now. it's incredible. it's really important conservative principal group within the republican covers men house of representative. what -- let's begin with talking about this tiktok because you something everyone is thinking about. can you tell us about this bipartisan tiktok bill? rep. hern: first of all, thanks for having me. the hudson institute has been around since i was born. it's great what you all have done, really smart people.

we have had folks speak to rc as recently as two weeks ago. you cametalked with us about china. very smart in that space. as a relates to tiktok, first thing we need to dispel as we are notere to disband tiktok. we are trying to protect america and americans from, sometimes their own selves. as we saw last year when the ceo of bytedance testified to congress, one of the most poignant questions asked of him was, do you allow the same data gathering where the same techniques to be used in china as you do in the united states. his response was sort of stuttering and saying no, then the follow-up question to that is, you have the algorithms in place to turn this off or leave it on. certainly, he did not acknowledge or deny. but we are saying with tiktok is

is, china, by statute of congress in 2020, china is one of the fivehowever you want to t is going to use at medium tiktok to collect data with american citizens and company. we will have a part of that and that's what this bill is about. it's a bipartisan bill. to the former speaker. speaker mccarthy tried to get this tiant -- china task force together not do it. so when he became speaker of the house last year he put this together. it's very bipartisan, led by mike gallagher in the work they are doing is really good. rebeccah: just on the facts, tiktok is owned by bytedance, which is then controlled by the ccc. the legislation requires bytedance to get control from the ccp. it can go any longer as a

non-adversary entity controlling the app. rep. hern: we are looking at it wednesday percent threshold. they can own tany percent. they lose control of the company at that point in time. you are hearing from bytedance is, their worries is essentially get tiktok out of the nation. if that's what you believe,ou must be doing something nefarious with the gather you -- with the data you are gathering. rebeccah: it was passed completely unanimously 50-0. and then the tiktok app used through its algorithms and have a button there for young people who are using the app to put in their area code and it would give them it against this particular legislation. it really shows how this canomic benefit for china. imagine it where china wants toy

push out information to young people and save the united states destabilizing. galvanize support for interests. rep. hern: if you look at what they are doing as far as some of the high-tech they have in the things they are doi t mine data, you look at their unbelievable growth. it came out in 2012. growth that's compared to the domestic companies. we are not here to try to bring parity between the platforms. but we are saying is, if you will be an adversarial nation, and it's just one part of the bill you talk about today, it a data collection device, one of many that they have in our reports and in our electric vehicles tforth, we are going to everything to address each one of these. rebeccah: it's really an encouraging development to see

the bipartisan support for it and really just see tiktok's efforts to lobby against it and it may have backfired hadn't affected the increase solidified support. really encouraging. i would like to move on to the china bill that was just introduced. kind of surprised how comprehensive it is. rep. hern: 357 pages. rebeccah: it's really interesting. i think not even just for the legislation itself, but as a teaching guide to go through and see where china is trying to harm the united states and what are things you can try to unwind some of it. congressman, i kind of went through it, i did not get all the way through it, but i was trying to understand the apchtwo things came to focus fo. and that is that it look like it's trying to shore up america's own strength and ycoun

technology and advanced tech. trying to protect that so we can go -- grow stronger and innovative, and then■a what chis nefarious behaviors. is that fair, those two pillars? thinkrep. hern: i think what so different about china versus the hudson institute founded against t warg the principles forward. we looked at that more as a space race or a nuclear arms race then more physical blunt force troops on the ground. and then we also had spying around. throwing a little spying here and &i■vere. today, this is a different approach. i've often said, in my time as rnc air, is that china wants to destroy us economically and control us militarily. and they are moving very rapidly to do so.

nly been on the world stage since 2001 when they were brought into the wto. we thought we could democratize china. i'm sure at that time we had an idea that we could use their economy. their economy is impnt and our producers, just as our people are important to their producers. when we look at out downed investments in the united and we look at the tremendous growth in certain sectors, especially when it comes to national defense areas, areas of technology, whether it be aerospace or chip development, all of these things, nuclear proliferation, or even in lo at our genetics in some of the stuff there. look it up. all of these things we had to look at. are focusing on is, first of all, are we doing what we need to do at home. tiktok is one example. lbwe can t 80% of the

cranes in our ports are chinese developed. we saw cellulamodems where they are tracking ships and what's happening out our ports. but then you look out pound is what we're doing to report and have transparency. we have some of our largest investment firms that have funds that are completely focused on china technology. you can invest your money directly in a chinese support for the aerospace programs. when you look at■ a day in the paper, they document 79 that they've had around for a few years, six or seven years that they want to basically, in their words, this slaying is delete america from all the technology. other investments in the western world. funding their technology platforms. they are building the steel ip logy

companies, and then turn around saying we are going to push you out through regulatory action, not choose you as our■p supplier with big mainframes or our software for our government. one of our largest companies in the world are from 50% down to four of 5% in five to six years. so they are moving very quickly, stealing rip, and we are finding that through our outbound investments. rebeccah: there was a public debate about how do we use the term that's like economically assured destruction between the u.s. china, ever since we welcome china and the w.h.o. -- wpo, republicans and democrats sought -- rep. hern: know they own the w.h.o.. oblem we have to solve.erent that we enrich china.

so now they have had their hand and did their now they are healthy and that's where we see a more aggressive behavior. the challenge is, how do we unndhis? you actually not advocating for complete decoupling from china, second largest economy in the world, $14.14 trillion, so now the challenge is how do we look at those specific technologies to make sure we are not continuing to empower the country that is trying to supply the united states. >> it's about -- rep. hern: it's about bringing transparency. we talked about this interview and making people aware that we are an economic war. i don't mean it bad, that's what we do, that's what we did as we rose as a nation. as we grew.peting against

we did this because we wanted to create better products. we wanted to treat our people well. good human rights. and everything that i just mentioned, china is a bad example of all of us. we need to expose them. those.z( this brings all the topics together that we've talkeded ■4 about as members of leadership, legislative creators over the years, bring those together to point out the whenhe you bring these all together, to talk to happening there, and oreducati, all these components together, when you bake that cake it doesn't look very pretty. >> host: it is important, the cokey part of how china thinks about technology as a civil military fusion. is sectors. sectors, you are not buying

this is okay, commercial■z purposes but actually directly applicable and that distinction between private and civil versus military is not there.to understand what that means. in the united states we have a complete delineation that t th commander-in-chief is a civilian, we have a delineation that the military is the when we develop we develop products, technology for our military and our civilian use. china is completely different.d they are one and the same. anytime they develop something for civilians, it's with the military in mind. the other way around for thes to use it but a perfect example of this, there's a lot made about how difficult it is for us to get cybersecurity people in our military, we've had many briefings on this. in china, the every day chinese

person is recruited to test systems, to do hacking get pai that, but they are not in the military. they want to be unified works in unification to come after the united states of america because we are in the lead. role during the cold war, the work, wasn't me, i wasn't here yet but i came on the scene soon afte the forefront of concern of efforts during the cold war, now it is talked about, think tanks in thete washington, not necessarily the case that they are objectively speaking beginning from a pro america perspective to make the

united states stronger, to combat our enemies. the same thing in is about requirements or transparency for where you are getting your money, influence and support.t. aspect the china has been very successful tanks but retired members of congress and lobbying efforts and things like the confucius institute. if you talk about how you all thought about that challenge. >> you just alluded to it a minute ago. after the bill passed 50-0 yesterday, we had people call■ the conservative seen on many other issues, our most conservative think tanks, people in other industry, lobbyists, reach out to us.

dirksen senate office building the tick-tock bill, opposing the ll. >> these are people that should be and would be in any normal situation strong americans but because it was tick-tock and because they were getting compensated, this includes former members that are now lobbying for the ccp. it's important also. china is very smart. we've been very open about our representative republican freedoms around the world. that'sen■hy p look at xi xinpis been savvy in this as president of china, that is his unofficial title.■ dp his official title is general secretary of the chinese communist people. people need to realize we are dealing with people who a■ore coming after us in this way. we want to know who is lobbying in the united states on their behalf and again. if it's an adversarial nation

as defined by congress, what is china, iran, and venezuela. if they are lobbying on behalf of those nations and we've defined them as such, we, wan to know who they are and if they want to do this because free of charge. blican study committee to do this, it takes some political courage to come out and say we are not going toou this anymore, this -- here they are kind of lobbying on behalf of entities organizations that we know are being pushed by the chinese communist party so time to stop it because i have found it is odd that every time there's an effort, seems there is bipartisan support to end things like drones governed by eyou think it is going to happn there is an overwhelming

lobbying effort and it stops that, i think, is a very good and useful aspect of the bill. >> it's as big economy, you wt them to take advantage because the more they can grow and have more production, the less cost we pay in the united states as consumers and we demand high-value, low cost, that is at a free market and also when i look at what is happening there?i i am reminde often about what china is trying to do and they want to suck us in and to your point when this bill goes by the wayside you don't these folks anymore and what i always tell every one of these folks that i will say to your audience, i don't hate china, i i think if we had that narrative that america is

first, that makes some people feel uncomfortable but we have to look at it that way because i can assure you china is looking at china first. >> you brought up a deck of m which is understanding the ideological motivations of china. if this was a country who shared our ideas about freedom in international waters, reciprocity in trade and technology, those are the principles the us lead since the cold war, about how to conduct ourselves in the world, that could continue. but they are not motivated by osted states out and supplant us to be the most powerful power and ■at means ver infringement on freedom. >> chaos around the world benefits china because they can come in and be the white horse to rescue these other nations ust that. if you look, we just had general jack keane speak to us

unrest in the middle east, what's happening in ukraine and you have to love the guy, the knowledge he has about, he's seen this firsthand and he said the mistake we should not make as americans in the free and western world is that we should mistake to think that iran is not at the center of office. we should not make the mistake the one that's bankrolling them. you have a person, a proxy in iran who is using proxies to put that money out there and china backing them, china is cking russia, china is backing north korea, venezuela, china is, through their economic power creating the unrest in every economy. >> host: i could talk about this for an hour with you. back to my next question, how

this ties together the world stage. we got crazies ass you mentiond in the red sea and crisis, russia's invasion of ukraine ongoing and chinesein provocative, dangerous,ehaviorh using water cannons against the philippines and you raised the unrelated. they are related. i want to make the final point with what is going on in the red seare with iran driving al this, ukrainian proxies, they are not going to hit, the chinese flagship can go through e red sea and the russian flagship can go through the red sea unscathed but the houthis are going to continue hitting pro-democracy western commercial shipping >> guest: think about how many

days ships have all the way around southern africa to bring products to the united states, oil and gas products coming certainly from chinand t your ships would never be sunk, you have no problem doing that so you always have the lowest goodovi india or southeast asia or australia or anywhere comingin through that way so if you are european you are concerned about this, then, when you look at the chinese, what they are doing to bring south africa closer to south■s america and was just there a few months ago talking to people there, on the eastern seaboard or western seaboard of africa china is building forts because that's the closest connection on ships between south africa and south america, the straits of venezuela and recently talking

with the government in lima, peru, same thing in peru, 50 miles north of lima building a huge superport, h $3.5 billion port and china says build the sport with this caveat, can't have customs there, can't have security customs there and that is the closest to china. when we 've lived in comfort with the pacific and atlantic as our big moats chinamerica and mexico into the united : states. >> host: how would you -- that's incredibly informative, to theat middle east, the hot button issue rightchina, think about the biden administration's strategy for handling these problems and why it is not going so well in policy towards iran versus china. if you don't understand the

china is the one bankrolling the uranian's you can't come up with a coherent strategy, if you don't understand the i rgc is sending it against the russian war effort you can come up with a coherent strategy fot russians back in their own territory. if you wouldn't mind, i know it is important because we are here to talk about your china bill but to understand why it is so important to take on china and its effects on other untrs, if you talk about china buying uranian oil defying us sanctions, how you are thinking about that, trying to tackle the iran problem in the context of china. >> wena spent a lot of time talking about the money released out of qatar, the president saying it would be used for humanitarian aid in■i iran and has the clerics in iran, and nobody pushing it.t.

as it turns out, the $6 coming out of qatar, irani and money that had been frozen, that is the smallest amount of all the amounts coming back and forth. a rack was allowed to purchase $10 billion of energy from iran. china, $60 billion energy from iran, before mike pompeo and donald trump left in 2020 the reserve currencies were down $10 billion or so and now they are backup approaching one hundred billion dollars plus because they have an influx of money and they are turning around to create this unrest in the middle east and economic uncertainty and that is what they do. 700,000 barrels a day, china is buying from iran, and it is denominated to chinese dollars, on the world stage a barrel of oil is done dominating us dollars except for the relationship between china and iran which is bought by the chinese dollar and when you

look at what's happening in august, it is believed based on the outside people looking in 90 oil production was that much higher you turn around and see china supplying iran with the chips or their drones are going to russia so to your point, it's all one big happy family here and until you solve these or going after the people cat bade like iran and start going after those sanctions, you won't stop it. >> host: the idea that republicans and conservatives are, as a party and is a movement turning inward, neglecting american leadership on the world stage putting it very bluntly, sounds to me everything you said here would doom us. a lot of what you are saying is

a v very smart us intentionali, energy policy for instance but on technology and collaborating with allies. i don't know how we do that without the collaboration of like-minded allies who are also imperiled because of shared adversaries in china, russia, iran, nortko >> you mentioned my background, how i came to congress six years ago and never been in politics all my whole life has been about solving problems, not about politics. i hate politics. i think politics of america are getting in taynational securit look at thet southern border driven by chinese fentanyl. the same thing is happening p statements, we are not going after good policy. we need to rule some of these areas. i was just speaking the reference there is what we have seen with russian oil

energy coming to europe, decimated our energy supply, we can't allow that to s happen wn china invades taiwan. we've got to figure out how to turn back to people who are of pee environment. so i think our western allies are starting to wake up to this, that it is not, they are not being hoodwinked on what china is trying to deliver. >> guest: as these authoritarian more clearly collaborating to undermine the united states and our allies, you are seeing increasing collaboration among like-minded pro-democracy countries that aren't in the same neighborhood, lithuania sy with taiwan, taiwan's solidarity with ukraine, really interesting, different theaters

of the world. it's going to be necessary to get this stuff done. couple times, let's talk about that because the focus is on china, but china has, chinese nationals are the largest demographic of people coming illegally across the southern border. to talk about how you see border security as related to the general problems that we have.gem >> i've been to the border where there are people crossing the border. tucson a few weeks ago and those folks coming across don't want asylum. they are coming nationals are coming through, you look at the fentanyl crisis, the only place in the world there's a fentanyl crisis ■éj■ç i've talked with interpol and dea, fbi in europe, they don't

have a fentanyl problem. there is no money in it. so what we have to ask, the average bill is one dollar to $2, what's the real purpose of sending in fentanyl to the united states to kill 350 million americans, on an annual basis, it is really about trying to kill us from the inside out. killing 100,000 people a year with fenny this bill is about,g to expose every aspect of china's influence negatively on and when you look at two ports of mexico or the precursors coming in, the factories to make fentanyl are only in mexico.mq was just in panama, colombia, just in peru, none of those countries have a fentany. fentanyl is not blowing south, it's not flowing east to west, it's only flowing north into the united states of america.

>> we are grappling with russia's war against ukraine and coming up with an education effort and clear sound recommendations to try to end the war, how the united states can support to end the war favorably to people of the united states and an issue that's very complicated and confused, republican study committee has, i encourage you to look it up. they put out a budget every year and it really lays out what the republican study committee would do and recommend on ald variety of complex issues and on page 44 of the bill you really lay out the causes of the war, platter putin's regime was not de deterred, seeks to destroy ukraine, subjugate ukraine and

contin out and undermine us influence in europe. recommend you have a strategy, you give ukraine the weapons it needs to execute its strategy and that's how you get to the end of the war rather than a long protracted war. is that still overview of you and the republican study committee you? >> it's up of our most hard parts right and moderate republicans. i respect the views all of them have but one common theme is everybody believes vladimir putin is a bad adversary, this guy, what his son ukraine is terrible. but we can't keep sending american taxpayer dollars there with no accountability on humanitarian aid, nono accountability on what the strategy is to end the war. just send us another $50 billion. we spent basically equivalent

to what we were spending per year in afghanistan. at least we had a what we are we don't have a strategy, nobody nobody believes we are going to push vladimir putin out of ukraine, so there's going to have to be some kind of brokered peace but vladimir putin doesn't want is that. you wants to continue fighting, he has l more folks are going there. we are continuing to push back on the administration, give us oversight. igs from state, dod, teusaid, many ous people in charge of strategy, haven't believe we gotten any satisfactory -- we've got to r. we also know given humanitarian aid, propping up the ukrainian pensions is not something we will be improving.

>> the focus if i understand you accurately, the focus for you and members of congress is if there's a strategy to empoweror ukraine, to get them the weapons they need and not necessarily more fungible economic aid or perhapsc a lo that has been floated but certainly the focus should be on weapons backed by a strategy. funding. it was a huge number of republicans. not sayinall but for that but start to tell us a strategy, we don't want another endless war, tell us the strategy and then lost 87 or 97 republicans. that was the strategy. one hundred 17 republicans, no you can't get the bill on the floor on the house. so you're going to have to tell what your accountability is going to be for us taxpayer

dollars and what is the strategy andnd i believe you wl have, we will crush vladimir putin once and for all.. >> host: the reason for the weapons, the policy matter, a lot of investment does help to increase our own defense industrial base. >> guest: i was talking to finance ministers.e europe are approval rating and helping ukraine for different reason because they see a dollar given to ukraine as something less in their social programs, here we just borrow more money. that's the joke. to your point, the military-industrial complex is in the united states and send them to ukraine but we need strategy. dirksen senate office building -- c

>> to adapt our weapons so they canss be up to par for the essentially newew cold war we e in not just in the russia context but whave to uce them to scale to determine not just russia but also china. >> we have taiwan who paid for weapons that we are still waiting on after 5 years. >> they have military sales that have been approved, many of them are different weapons than we are sending to europe, this administration has chosen not to. thank you. i'm going to -- not going to close this out yet because i want to take a couple questions from the audience, state your name please and keep your questions very brief. back so the congressman can -- here. c-span2 my question, haven't read your bill yet but one of the issues you mentioned earlier is about restrictions

on us investment in china. that has been the point of a lot of debate and i'm wondering where you think the rsc is on coming to some actual agreement on outbound investments. >> and one more question over here and we will get a microphone to you. we want the people who are watching online to be able to -- >> caller: thanks for being here. i'mha yourpartner for a defens technology venture capital firm, thank you for leading the charge on this bill and everything else you are doing, would like to understand a little more about your thoughts on probability of success and how large the bill will be and when it will get into place because i am with you, we have a serious problem, china is behind everything going on here in the second part is do you think we can affo to wait on

the strategy to get the arms to ukraine, because i just feel like we are dithering and it is not a good situation for us as a country. >> that outbound investment issue, the act as you know was a ban on exporting to china certain chips and stuff. the repercussions of that coming back were china says we have western companies that are supplying certain products to china and you have been, this particular chip company is the sole supplier in 80 to 90% supplier of those chips for decades so now we find that so there's a technology war going on. it's not in a silo as you are certainly aware and we have to deal with is that but the first thing is transparent to find used as a weapon against our on

portion. it is emboldened what they've done in 6 years to come after our technology companies.er regarding, i would like to think this administration, we didn't get a lot of direction last night what the strategies are, speak to what i've seen in classified settings but it is safe to say that nobody wants vladimir putin to be successful so what does that look like, we are seeing the eu step up quite a lot and offsetting the humanitarian side. than because they don't make anything, maybe france a little bit and a little bit in england but as h

things that really matter that have been very effective against ships, tanks, aircraft and drones of the united states. at how this balances out and see what comes from the speaker in the next few weeks.■v >> let's do one more back here. >> caller: thank you, a candidat question regarding china is almost as if they monopolized everything for the us and when we look at the greatou numbers you mentioned regarding get migrants that aremi coming int the us and the numbers when it comes to military sense numbers greater than our own military, how are we dealing with that?

>> guest: not very well. i will give you an example of this. i was visiting the deputy chief, cdc agent in tucson just three weeks ago.o. everybody sees the optics of texas and it's really bad, people coming across, cvd agent saying i want to claim asy we have 256 miles in the tucson sector andy the way, every republican that was there was pleased to see the 22 miles of wall you could see, 20 of thatas president obamas. o most people believe president obama never built a foot of wall. build a wall because he knew it worked. the next two donald trump's. it was 10 feet taller and politically it sounds funny but they did a psychological comi

people get to the top and say it's too far to fall but 30 feet will hurt and then you get to t top of the ridge of that mountain,th 9000 foot mountain and there is a plow paved road, the offense is lying on the ground and that was president biden's. there is no wall. the agents said 2017-18, 70,000 people came 256 miles. today by the end of this fiscal year it will be close to 800,000. these 800,000, there were no agents on this wall for 22 miles, 0.0. and he said we will show you the camera footage, they are coming through the mountains, camouflage, with backpacks, they have carpet shoes on and by the way mainstream media now is reporting onon this, somethg they wouldn't have done 5 years ago.et so we know it's a bad deal. that's why you are seeing a lo

secure our nation and we will more more about securing ukraine. there's been a very -- americans need to get their mind around just as you say, appreciate you stating that r and i want to say one other thing around the military issue. this was a pretty prominent person in government who said this, we are talking with folks and they said this. when china comes into our hi country. they don't ask whether they aro going to make money or not, they just go spend the money because they are doing it for strategic purpos. free market, our separation between companies and government, when our companies come and they have to ask and i make money doing this, can't just go in and lose money, that is not what my stakeholders will allow. so it is a different dynamic, we are competing with one large government called the chinese

communist people who want to destroy our way of life. >> appreciyoing the bill to protect american young people from the influence of a chinese government social media apps, thank you for the teaching tool, and walking us is chronic and acute, the united states and our allies, on, take some willingness to get some done across the aisle. thank you for being here. thank you for joining us.[inau

coersations] >> president biden released his budget f fiscal year 2025 which aims to provide support for families while raisi taxes on the wealthy. the proposed budget would restore the expanded china tax credit and provide additional funding to the social security ministration a o mike johnson released a statement about the impact of the president's proposed budget. ce point president biden's proposed budget is another glaring reminder of this administration's insatiable appetite for reckless spending and the democrats disregard for fiscal rily. today, white house