Lea Feiger: And I trust, darling.
Vittoria Elliott: But if it happens, what bank will give him money after seeing what he did to Twitter?
Lea Feiger: However, if he tweets about it, in the next week or a half, Tori, you’ll have to take me to lunch.
Vittoria Elliott: I don’t understand why this is my responsibility. I can compromise over coffee.
Lea Feiger: Made. Alright, let’s leave it there. When we come back, we’ll talk about all the political influencers working with presidential campaigns on TikTok.
[Break]
Lea Feiger: Welcome back to the WIRED Policy Lab. Around the same time the Senate passed the TikTok ban/divestment bill Tuesday night, Team Biden posted a TikTok. Makena, Tori, did you see this?
Vittoria Elliott: Wild.
Makena Kelly: Yes we did it.
Lea Feiger: Describe it to me.
Spokesman: You stood firm with us and we will stand firm with you, sir.
Makena Kelly: It was just a clip from a workers meeting in March, but at the same time, it had these cute little halo emojis, angel emojis.
Lea Feiger: It was very curated. His TikTok team knows what he’s doing.
Makena Kelly: And very oblivious to what was happening on the Senate floor.
Lea Feiger: How is this possible? I mean, Biden just signed this bill. Help me understand the context here.
Vittoria Elliott: I think one of the most important things is that the bill was included in a big foreign aid bill, so a lot of the news headlines revolve around the fact that we’re giving 60 billion to Ukraine. , that the aid will go to Israel and Taiwan. , and those are all big focuses of Biden’s platform. He has been campaigning for months.
Lea Feiger: Absolutely.
Vittoria Elliott: To get this Ukraine aid bill passed, and I think realistically, that’s A, the administration’s focus, and B, what they’d prefer we all focus on, which is, hey, this It is a very ineffective Congress project. In fact, it’s been a really unproductive Congress this term, and this is a big victory for a really important campaign promise.
Makena Kelly: And notably, Biden’s statement last night that came out right after the vote didn’t even mention TikTok at all.
Lea Feiger: That’s due to the fact that he then posted a TikTok, or his campaign posted a TikTok. What were the comments on the TikTok video?
Makena Kelly: Biden’s campaign might have been oblivious to what was happening in the Senate, but his followers on TikTok were not.
Lea Feiger: Amazing.
Makena Kelly: If you go through all the comments, you’ll say, “Keep TikTok, prayer emoji. Keep TikTok, Joey.” It’s literally all of that with something random, “Vote Biden” or “Trump will save America” or stuff like that, but it’s mostly like “#KeepTikTok.”