Exclusive: Rep. Gallagher Rips ‘Massive Idiots’ Backing Bin Laden on TikTok, Calls to Ban Chinese-Owned App

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Joshua Klein

Young TikTokers promoting terror leader Osama bin Laden and his propaganda are “massive idiots,” according to Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) who slammed their “absolutely disgusting” justification of the September 11 attacks and called for a ban on the Chinese-owned and influenced app before the Chinese Communist Party “checkmates the free world by controlling the dominant media platform in America and spreading this dangerous, disgusting nonsense.”

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, Gallagher, who serves as chair of the Select Committee on China, addressed the recent phenomenon of young Americans going viral on TikTok sympathizing with Osama bin Laden and recirculating his 2002 letter in which the terrorist leader attempts to justify the mass murder of Americans on September 11, 2001.

Bin Laden was the mastermind of those attacks which took place 22 years ago and saw Islamic terrorists crash passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon — with an additional plane crashing in rural Pennsylvania following a passenger revolt — killing nearly 3,000 Americans.

“Well, these people are, of course, massive idiots,” Gallagher said of the young TikTokers expressing support and sympathy for the slain terror leader.

Describing the “true face of evil” of Islamic terror, he slammed the “absolutely disgusting” justification of it.

“I just came from watching the footage that the Israeli embassy compiled about the October 7th attack. It is horrific,” he said. “You are seeing Hamas kill infants and behead innocent civilians with garden hoes. These images are disturbing and show the true face of evil.”

WATCH — Rep. Mike Gallagher: U.S. Users Should Delete TikTok:

“So for someone on TikTok to suggest that this is America’s fault, or that bin Laden — who killed thousands of innocent Americans — was right, is absolutely disgusting,” he added.

According to Gallagher, the phenomenon is “further evidence that we have to ban TikTok or force a sale before the Chinese Communist Party checkmates the free world by controlling the dominant media platform in America and spreading this dangerous, disgusting nonsense.”

The comments come as bin Laden’s “Letter to America” went viral on TikTok this past week among a new generation of those mostly born after September 11, 2001, or too young to recall the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in U.S. history. 

Amid the public debate on the Israel-Hamas war, young people are defending bin Laden for his opposition to America and its support for Israel.

Videos on the topic have already garnered millions of views.

“I’m not about to sit here [and] act like [bin Laden]’s just the worst person in the world when America has literally been terrorizing people since the beginning of history,” one TikTok user said in a video.

The trend appears to have started with TikToker Lynette Adkins who posted a clip Tuesday calling on “everyone to stop what they’re doing right now and go read — it’s literally two pages — go read ‘A Letter to America.’”

Subsequently, TikTok announced it was “proactively and aggressively” removing videos expressing support for Osama bin Laden and promoting the late terrorist leader’s infamous letter.

The White House in a statement on X said “no one should ever insult the 2,977 American families still mourning loved ones by associating themselves with the vile words of Osama bin Laden.”

“Particularly now, at a time of rising antisemitic violence in the world, and just after Hamas terrorists carried out the worst slaughter of the Jewish people since the Holocaust in the name of the same conspiracy theories,” it added.

Published by the al-Qaeda pan-Islamist terror group the year following the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden’s letter addressing America is a radical and religious critique of the United States and its policies.

In it, the U.S. is lambasted for preventing the establishment of Islamic Shariah law, while the removal of Arab governments working as American “agents” is deemed a “necessary step to free the Ummah [Islamic community], to make the Shariah the supreme law and to regain Palestine.”

It calls on Americans to be in “complete submission” to Allah’s laws and to discard “all the opinions, orders, theories and religions which contradict with the religion [Allah] sent down to His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).”

Referring to Islam as “the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme,” the letter also urges Americans “to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and trading with interest.”

Describing America as “the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind,” because “rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, [Americans] choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire,” the letter also claims the U.S. has “destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history.”

WATCH — Mike Gallagher’s full opening statement on the China committee:

The Select Committee on the CCP

Citing the Koran and declaring that the Islamic nation “desires death more than you desire life,” it also criticizes the U.S. for having “dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan, even though Japan was ready to negotiate an end to the war.”

Rejecting the right of the Jewish state to exist, it calls Israel’s creation “a crime which must be erased,” while claiming that Muslims are “the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed.” 

Claiming that the freedom and democracy America upholds is “for yourselves and for [the] white race only,” the letter insists that “the Islamic Nation, from the very core of its soul, despises [America’s] haughtiness and arrogance.”

The letter also criticizes the U.S. for allowing Jews to control America’s “policies, media and economy,” and justifies the killing of American civilians, arguing that they indirectly support U.S. policies through taxes. 

Earlier this month, Gallagher warned that a surge in support from young Americans for the Hamas terrorist group was predominantly linked to TikTok, describing the social app as “the largest scale malign influence operation ever conducted,” while he accused the Chinese “digital fentanyl” of “brainwashing our youth against the country and our allies.”

Calling for an urgent “ban” on TikTok, “or at least force the sale to an American company,” he also noted the platform “is not just an app teenagers use to make viral dance videos [but] a growing number of Americans rely on TikTok for their news.” 

“Today, TikTok is the top search engine for more than half of Gen Z and it’s controlled by America’s foremost adversary — the Chinese Communist Party,” he noted, adding that its Chinese parent company, Bytedance, cannot be trusted because in China “there is no such thing as a private company.”

A recent Pew Research Center study revealed a significant increase in Americans, particularly younger adults, turning to TikTok for their news, contrasting with static or declining news consumption on other social media platforms. 

According to the study, an alarming 32 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 turn to the China-owned platform to receive their news.

The matter comes as TikTok continues to come under scrutiny by various governments over fears that Beijing might exploit it for user data or its agendas.

As Breitbart News reported, the video sharing social network, owned by a hostile foreign nation, has already shown itself to be meddling in other countries’ affairs, with top U.S. intelligence officials, including CIA Director William J. Burns and FBI Director Christopher Wray, having unequivocally warned about the national security threats posed by TikTok, citing concerns over pro-Hamas content and other issues.

In September, a Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing on countering China’s “malign influence operations” in the United States revealed an “absolutely terrifying” and unprecedented scenario in which the communist Chinese government could use its “massive” data procured from TikTok in a potential military conflict.

The U.S., UK, and New Zealand have prohibited the app on official devices, even though TikTok asserts it has not and would not share data with China’s government.

In 2020, then-President Donald Trump tried to outright ban new downloads of the Chinese app, but a series of court decisions blocked the ruling from going into effect.

Since then, many have changed their stance, with Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) eventually admitting, “As painful as it is for me to say, if Donald Trump was right and we could’ve taken action then, that’d have been a heck of a lot easier than trying to take action [now].”

TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has also been caught prying on U.S. and UK journalists in multiple instances. The Chinese app has even shown itself to pose an outright danger to kids and teens and has become a national security threat that has meddled in U.S. elections.

Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.

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