Shou Zi Chew

“I will kill you if you fucking shut down TikTok,” a teenage boy warned to a member of Congress in a voicemail reviewed by The Spectator. “I will really really fuck you up. So don’t shut down TikTok. Bye bye!”  This week, Capitol Hill was inundated with a series of unusual callers — children, some as young as six years old. They had been enlisted by TikTok to forcibly push back against a bill that’s on track to sail through the House next week which forces the divestiture of a series of companies owned by foreign adversaries, like China in the case of the globally popular video app.

Just as TikTok looked as though it had weathered the storm following a murky congressional hearing, a group of Republicans are demanding that the Department of Justice investigate its CEO for allegedly lying to Congress. Thirteen House Republicans, led by Representative Tim Walberg, wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a letter obtained by The Spectator, demanding that the DoJ look into what they claim are critical lies told to Congress by TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, while he was testifying under oath. “It is imperative that we hold Chew and TikTok accountable for his false statements regarding crucial facts of the company’s operations,” the Republicans wrote. The signatories are all members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which grilled Chew earlier this year.

Thursday was a sickening day for TikTok. Its CEO Shou Zi Chew came to Congress flanked by low-energy and likely highly-compensated “influencers.” He left looking queasy, like he'd just been force-fed a dish of FDA-condemned “NyQuil Chicken” — the infamous recipe popularized by users of his platform. Time after time, Chew was thanked by both Republicans and Democrats for doing the impossible: making members of both parties on the Energy and Commerce Committee unite against his own company. While TikTok’s fate is still uncertain, the Biden White House’s distance from his fellow Democrats is curious.