Donald Trump’s on TikTok, but VP hopeful Marco Rubio’s still attacking it

Florida’s senior Senator may or may not be on Donald Trump’s ticket in November. But U.S. Marco Rubio isn’t going out of his way to stifle potential areas of disagreement with the former President.

Just days after the Trump campaign promoted its new account on TikTok, Rubio went back on the attack against the Chinese-connected social media platform.

“Further evidence TikTok is a propaganda tool for pro-Hamas groups,” Rubio harrumphed on his official account on X, responding to a news article with the lurid headline, “TikTok Executives To Speak at Conference Organized by Group That Has Defended Hamas Attack on Israel and Promoted ‘Knife Intifada.'”

TikTok’s alleged pro-Hamas bent, of course, did not discourage the Trump campaign from joining the medium this weekend.

As the campaign announced, Trump “walked out to a standing ovation in a packed house at UFC 302 and launched his TikTok account” on Saturday night.

“Released with no announcement, the account quickly broke records and destroyed dishonest Joe Biden’s TikTok weak and feeble launch video. President Trump’s TikTok account is the most successful political account launch in TikTok history according to TikTok.”

In addition to his Hamas worries, Rubio has painted the medium as being a Chinese front for years.

“The danger posed by Chinese-owned applications like TikTok and WeChat is that the Chinese Communist Party can force these companies to turn over Americans’ user data the company collects and manipulate what users see or don’t see,” he said in 2020, lauding then-President Trump for attempting a ban, which was later thrown out in court.

“We cannot pretend that TikTok and other Chinese-owned companies are not beholden to the CCP,” Rubio wrote to CIA Director William Burns in 2021.

“TikTok poses a potential threat to personal privacy and our national security interests. There is absolutely no reason why this application, which Beijing can use to advance its malign foreign policy initiatives, should be utilized on federal devices. In its current form, this platform is not safe,” Rubio said in 2021, backing legislation to ban the app from governmental devices.

What’s clear is that Trump, who has embraced this platform even while keeping his X account largely dormant, won’t offer much cover for his potential running mate on this pet issue despite Rubio’s fervent position.

It remains to be seen if Rubio will be Trump’s running mate.

For starters, the two being from the same state presents potential Electoral College complications; unless one of them relocates, Florida electors couldn’t vote for both members of the ticket under many interpretations of the Constitution.

Rubio isn’t ruling out the potential promotion, however.

“I’ll do whatever the campaign asks me to do,” the Senator said on Meet the Press last month.