Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is fighting his own party with his tough stance against TikTok.
The Kentucky Republican is warning other GOP lawmakers that banning the Chinese-owned TikTok over security concerns will destroy their electoral chances "for a generation," reported Politico.
“We are in a political world,” Paul said. “We shouldn’t be completely oblivious to the fact that a lot of young people are on there and it is, frankly, their freedom of speech.”
There are multiple proposals in the Senate for handling security concerns related to the app, which has 150 million users in the U.S., and even GOP senators who favor giving the executive branch new authority to restrict technologies from China and other foreign states concede Paul has a point.
“Rand’s probably right that we get blamed," said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND).
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), however, openly mocked Paul's position as "ridiculous."
“Listen, if we can’t win younger voters because we’re not on TikTok," Hawley said, "we got serious problems in this party."