President Donald Trump falsely claimed he's "by far" the top account on TikTok in a bizarre riff delivered to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday morning. The president offered no evidence for his claim besides "a list."
"I'm a cheerleader for geniuses. I love geniuses. I love high I.Q. people," Trump told reporters. "He is a high I.Q. Person. I love high I.Q. People. I speak to Elon [Musk], I speak to Mark [Zuckerberg], I speak to Jeff [Bezos], everybody … At my first inauguration, none of them were standing behind me, they were just the opposite. At the last inauguration, every one of them was standing behind me. It was sort of… amazing. I speak to all of them, and I encourage them. I want them to be tremendously successful."
He continued, "Now, there is a thing called TikTok. Have you heard of it? I was watching a show this morning, Maria Bartiromo. She is fantastic. On her show, they were talking about the dangers of TikTok, and it's Chinese, a whole thing, spying and what they are doing. Well, except it was announced about two days ago, the new numbers just came out, you know who the number one person in Tic Tac is by far?"
"Trump, me. I'm number one… Taylor Swift was number eleven. I'm number one on TikTok by far. The numbers just came out, and I said, 'Well, I'm hearing about how they influence. They are talking about [how] they're a tremendous danger because of the influence. If they influence so badly, I'm saying all things like I love our country, we have to...
Imagine receiving a WhatsApp message saying the government is now monitoring your calls, reading your private messages, and can even take legal action based on what you send. Sounds alarming, righ...