Whether it's the response to COVID-19 or the consulate in Houston being ordered closed, whenever a China-related controversy is the news, MSNBC wonders if President Trump is just looking for a distraction. MSNBC Live host Katy Tur wondered Tuesday if Trump's announcement that the U.S. might ban the TikTok app and later consideration of a possible buyout by Microsoft was "because he needed a distraction."
To the media, a "distraction" is any event or policy suggestion that they don't want to define as "news." Russian collusion allegations were never a "distraction," and Russian interference in our elections was always a "national security issue," but not Chinese interference.
Tur asked "So what exactly is behind President Trump's threat to ban the video app TikTok? Critics including lawmakers have claimed that TikTok is a national security threat because the parent company ByteDance is based in China and required to turn over user data to Beijing. No definitive proof yet of a threat to national security, so why is the president pushing this issue now?"
To answer her question, Tur welcomed NYU professor and Big Tech-buster Scott Galloway, but initially Galloway criticized the means more than the end.
SCOTT GALLOWAY: This is highly unusual for a president to step in and decide a firm should be sold, and even go as far as to say this is the firm that firm should be sold ... But, again, this just seems like terrible execution around what has become just a series of kind of unpredictable steps. I don't think anyone could have imagined this scenario.
Galloway made it seem as if Trump appointed Microsoft to buy TikTok when in reality Microsoft was already in negotiations to acquire the app.
Tur followed up with critics. "There were lawmakers who were saying they didn't like it. There were concerns floated, I don't have it on my phone for a reason," but still suspected some ulterior motive, "Did this come out of nowhere? Did it get to the president's desk through a pipeline, or just something he used because he needed a distraction?"
Galloway wrapped up his part of the segment by wondering if American companies will now be treated the same way as Chinese companies in foreign countries:
GALLOWAY: But, you can see where this might play out should Indonesia, which is Facebook’s second biggest market by users all of a sudden decided to turn around to Facebook and say, we're going to ban you or you have to sell to an Indonesian company, so this could a lead of bad places and it’s just weird to think within a matter of seven days, overnight it looks like the president has decided that Microsoft should acquire TikTok.
Tur agreed that "it is weird," but is it really that weird when the Republican president, Democratic nominee for president, and the U.S. government, including all branches of the military agree that TikTok presents a national security problem?
This segment was brought to you in part by Verizon.
Here is a transcript for the August 4 show:
MSNBC
MSNBC Live
2:53 PM ET
KATY TUR: So what exactly is behind President Trump's threat to ban the video app TikTok. Critics including lawmakers have claimed that TikTok is a national security threat because the parent company ByteDance is based in China and required to turn over user data to Beijing, no definitive proof yet of a threat to national security so why is the president pushing this issue now? With me now is Scott Galloway, he’s the co-host of The Pivot podcast and a professor at the NYU School of Business. Scott, always great to have you. Thanks for being here. Help make sense of this, why does the president suddenly not like TikTok?
SCOTT GALLOWAY: Well, that's a tall order. I think this is a governance -- it reminds me of my school has this auction trying to raise money and you can be principal for the day, the president deciding he wants to be a CEO for a day with bigger assets. This is highly unusual for a president to step in and decide a firm should be sold and even go as far as to say this is the firm that firm should be sold and then on top of it they're going to demand some sort of -- so it's -- the script is that any Chinese company has a direct pipeline of data into the Chinese government, which, and this deserves scrutiny, can use that data or weaponize that data and sees us as an adversary. There’s huge amount of intellectual property theft, there's enormous controversy around companies that go into China, our tech companies just long enough for the Chinese to steal their IP and then kick them out. But, again, this just seems like terrible execution around what has become just a series of kind of unpredictable steps. I don't think anyone could have imagined this scenario.
TUR: There were lawmakers who were saying they didn't like it. There were concerns floated, I don't have it on my phone for a reason. Did this come out of nowhere? Did it get to the president's desk through a pipeline or just something he used because he needed a distraction?
GALLOWAY: Possibly. So, the president has made clear that he thinks TikTok is a security threat and he's threatening to ban it by September 15th, but to suggest it should be sold to an American company and to be on the phone with that CEO, that's just highly unusual and there are probably other ways around it, okay the company could go public on a U.S. exchange, have U.S. governance, have security measures put in place such as no data flowed back to China. But, you can see where this might play out should Indonesia, which is Facebook’s second biggest market by users all of a sudden decided to turn around to Facebook and say, we're going to ban you or you have to sell to an Indonesian company, so this could a lead of bad places and it’s just weird to think within a matter of seven days, overnight it looks like the president has decided that Microsoft should acquire TikTok.
TUR: Yeah, it is weird. Also weird that he's saying now he's created so much controversy around banning it that they're making all sort of money and that the United States should get a cut of that money. Scott, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time.
