On February 18, 2022 Chase Nasca was a 16-year-old high school student. That morning his parents Dean and Michelle saw their child off to school expecting, like all parents do, to see their son later that afternoon. On his way home from school Chase stopped next to a train track, texted a friend “I can’t do it anymore”, then stepped in front of a train taking his own life.
I have hesitated to share this story in our weekly column. As a parent and grandparent, just typing this gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. I also hate the politization of tragedies, especially when they involve kids. However, this is not about politics; this is about the safety of our children and the security of our nation. It is important that we truly understand the threat.
In the days and weeks following Chase’s death, his parents searched for answers. As we all would, they blamed themselves for not noticing the profound pain their son was living with. When they opened his TikTok account, they discovered that their son had received more than 1,000 unsolicited videos promoting violence and suicide. According to his parents, Chase was flooded with videos promoting suicide for hours every day. Needless to say, his family is devastated and will live the rest of their lives with the inconsolable pain of losing the one thing in the world a parent cannot live without.
Fast forward a year and a half, TikTok’s disgusting grip on America’s youth was again publicly on display. When Hamas terrorists massacred over 1,200 people at an Israeli music festival and kidnapped hundreds more, TikTok immediately began promoting videos idolizing Osama bin Landen and justifying the attacks on 9/11 and his promotion of violence against Israel. Millions of pro-Hamas messages have been spread across the app which promote lies about the countless atrocities Hamas and its supporters, Iran and China, carry out on a daily basis.
After immense backlash, TikTok eventually stopped promoting Osama bin Laden. However, the Hamas sympathizing remains prominent on the app.
On top of poisoning the minds of American children and impressionable adults, TikTok collects and stores massive amounts of data on its users. That data is shared with its parent company, ByteDance, which is owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
And therein lies the problem.
The CCP has a publicly stated goal of overtaking the U.S. as the preeminent economic and military power in the world. Creating chaos among the American people is a powerful tool to distract the country from its other aggressions around the world, and TikTok has been a powerful tool to do that. It is important that we understand that creating sympathy for one of the worst people to walk the earth and actively encouraging American teens to take their own lives is not a mistake. It is not an error of the algorithm. It is a goal of the CCP. Just as the CCP shipping the ingredients of fentanyl to Mexican drug cartels to then poison the American people isn’t a mistake. It is part of a plan to disenfranchise, corrupt, and quite literally kill the next generation of Americans – particularly those of fighting age.
This week, the House passed a bill, H.R. 7521 the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, to force TikTok to break away from its parent company, the CCP-controlled ByteDance. By breaking the ties to the CCP, the app can continue to operate in the U.S. without serving as a strategic weapon to undermine the stability of the U.S.
Current law already gives the Administration the authority to force the sale of TikTok if it wants to continue operating in the United States. In fact, under President Trump, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) ordered ByteDance to divest its interest in TikTok in order for TikTok to remain in the U.S. Unfortunately, while that order remains in place the Biden Administration has allowed TikTok to utilize legal loopholes to continue its reprehensible behavior.
H.R. 7521 won’t fix all of our problems when it comes to China. They are still stealing our IP, committing fraud in our financial markets, shipping drugs across our southern border, and infecting our universities with dangerous ideology on a daily basis. But it will take away their greatest spying tool and loudest megaphone used to corrupt our youth. It could even stop hundreds of families from the unthinkable tragedy the Nasca family suffered with their son, Chase.
I am cautiously optimistic that the Senate and President will understand the gravity of this situation and make this bill a law as soon as possible.
CONTACT US: I encourage you to visit my official website or call my offices in Jefferson City (573-635-7232) or Cottleville (636-327-7055) with your questions and concerns. If you want even greater access to what I am working on, please visit my YouTube site, Facebook page, and keep up-to-date with Twitter and Instagram.
