WH Press Sec. Mentions “A TikTok That Went Out” From National Security Council About Chinese Spy Balloon

Today, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre held a press briefing following a contentious weekend. The Biden Administration let a Chinese spy balloon traverse a huge portion of the continental United States and finally shot it down off the east coast, after it completed its surveillance mission. During the course of this briefing, she was asked about the claim by Joe Biden that he said to shoot down the balloon back on Wednesday, but the military essentially disregarded his wishes and waited until Saturday. She ultimately spins the narrative a bit to reflect more of a collaborative decision to wait to shoot it down, but she begins her response with a statement that should terrify the entire nation. She says, “I know there was a TikTok that went out to all of you from the National Security Council that was pretty detailed, how everything kind of broke down for the past week, uh, and how things, uh, how things flowed…” A TikTok? You mean on the Chinese social media platform that is undeniably a national security risk?

I don’t know if she just accidentally said “TikTok” and meant something else, or whether the National Security Council actually sent out such a TikTok. But what she said was that the National Security Council sent out a detailed TikTok about our response timeline regarding the Chinese spy balloon. Which would mean that the National Security Council was using our enemy’s own social media platform to disseminate information about our response to that same enemy’s intrusive surveillance. Which makes absolutely no national security sense. Not to mention, TikTok has supposedly been banned from White House devices subsequent to FBI warnings of national security risk. So is the National Security Council just doing their own thing with TikTok?

Here’s the weird thing, though. Right when this press briefing happened, I saw a prominent Twitter account post a clip of it (the same clip I posted in my Tweet above, pulled directly from the official stream of the White House press briefing). But a couple of hours later, that tweet was deleted. I tried to search for another tweet with the same clip to include in this article and couldn’t find any other than people awkwardly recording their TV screen with their phones. That’s weird, because this is kind of a big deal and there should be numerous tweets sharing this clip.

Then I searched for mainstream news articles that mention it, and there’s nothing. There’s so conspicuously nothing that I can’t help but wonder if this is a coordinated removal of information. For example, I found this article in the Washington Examiner (a fairly conservative outlet) that partially quotes the clip above about TikTok and the National Security Council, conspicuously excluding the bit about TikTok. Instead, they simply say,

“Jean-Pierre faced numerous questions on the topic during Monday’s press briefing, specifically regarding the timeline for military action, and pointed to a timeline posted by the National Security Council “that was pretty detailed on how everything kind of broke down for the past week.””

Why would they not include the bit about a TikTok by the National Security Council? It’s so relevant, especially considering the national security risk posed by TikTok, a Chinese company, and in light of a Chinese spy balloon surveilling the U.S. Why leave that part out? Even when I search for the exact words spoken by Karine Jean-Pierre, all I get are results about how TikTok is a national security risk, and nothing about today’s briefing. Did someone, somewhere, put out an order that her mention of a TikTok by the National Security Council was not to be repeated?

The only reason I can think of for this media blackout is that KJP didn’t mean to say TikTok, and nobody wants to spread or quote a clip of her saying something that she didn’t mean to say. But the thing is that she did say it, and it’s a pretty huge mistake to make, if it was a mistake. That would be such a huge mistake that the mainstream media and commentators would surely want to be holding her accountable for mistakenly insinuating that the National Security Council was using China’s own extremely risky app to spread information about our national security response to a Chinese spy balloon. That’s the kind of thing people should be asking her to clarify, to see what she actually meant, if it was a mistake.

If it wasn’t a mistake, and she meant exactly what she said, then why is no one talking about how the National Security Council is using China’s own app to share information about our national security response to a Chinese spy balloon? I just don’t understand any part of this, but I’m ridiculously suspicious and skeptical because I know, mistake or not, these comments should not be blacked out by Big Tech or the Mainstream Media. And yet, here we are.