The following is a transcript of an interview with businessman Frank McCourt on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” broadcast December 8, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: A panel of federal judges in DC last week upheld a new law that could effectively ban the popular social media app TikTok by mid-January if its Chinese owners don’t sell it to a new buyer. Frank McCourt, the executive chairman of McCourt Global and founder of Project Liberty, is one of the potential buyers, and he joins us now. Good to see you here.
FRANK MCCOURT: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So TikTok says, they could go to the Supreme Court about this. If they don’t, their parent company, ByteDance, has said they are not interested in selling. Do you have any indication that this will be the case and that the new Trump administration would support someone like you in purchasing it?
FRANK MCCOURT: Well, I think where we are now, Margaret, there are three options. You know, one is a profession. Our lawyers tell us there is very little chance of a successful appeal by Bytedance, strong bipartisan legislation, a three to zero vote out of three by the appeals court. So now there are two left: a ban or a sale. We don’t want it to be banned. I would add that President-elect Trump has also said he doesn’t want to see it banned. Now let’s talk about sales. That’s why we’ve been working for the past eight months on the assumption that the legislation would be enforced and a sale would take place. So that’s where we are now, and we’re working very, very hard to be in a position to buy the US part of TikTok so that it doesn’t get shut down.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So what’s that worth to you? There are estimates that the value could be as high as $200 billion.
FRANK MCCOURT: $200 billion would be closer to what the entire platform is worth, not just the US piece. And let’s be clear: the Chinese government has said they are not selling the algorithm. They consider that the country’s IP. The American Tiktok is therefore a piece of bytedance. If it is sold, it will be sold without an algorithm. So the value will be much, much less than $200 to $200 billion. We’ve raised over $20 billion to get into position, and we’re very serious about raising the capital necessary to buy the platform, and to be clear, yes, we want to bring over the 170 million users to a new platform. protocol whereby individuals own and control their identity and data. We do not plan to replicate the existing version.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So let’s talk about that. As you said, 170 million Americans use TikTok, mostly young people. US law prohibits foreign control of the mass media, but this social media space is something of a loophole here. There are not many rules in this area. Do you think Congress should write new rules on the road’s role to ban foreign ownership and impose restrictions on even owners like you?
FRANK MCCOURT: I think we need to improve our regulations and policies. There’s no doubt about that. But much more importantly, we need to fix the technology. The internet is broken, fundamentally broken. We heard your guest earlier, Representative Turner, talk about the threat from China on our telecom hack, a huge hack, a huge threat to the Americans.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And they’re still in the telecom system.
FRANK MCCOURT: Absolutely. And we heard your recent guests, Representatives Kelly and Crow, talk about the flood of misinformation and disinformation, the fact that it’s a very dangerous world right now. The reason why Congress is moving so quickly along with TikTok to pass the legislation is because it is a national security threat to Americans, and the reason why the judges upheld it is for the same reason. So let’s turn a problem into a solution by taking advantage of this moment and moving the 100 and 70 million users to a new protocol in which individuals are respected.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you have any indication from President-elect Trump that he wants an American entity to buy this? Because he would also have some influence on the outcome.
FRANK MCCOURT: Of course, as president-elect he will have enormous influence.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Have you talked to him?
FRANK MCCOURT: But President Trump is a dealmaker. We know that. I’m a deal maker. Okay? I’ve been doing business deals all my life. Let’s make a deal where everyone wins, where China can sell off the US portion of TikTok, where US citizens are protected, and where 170 million users can continue to enjoy the platform. So he has said he doesn’t want it to be banned, which means a sale. And the legislation and the appellate decision require that this platform be owned by Americans. We’ve built a clean US bottom-up stack to move this user base, where there are no Chinese backdoors and no ability to take advantage of US citizens.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You indicate that you have developed a technology that you don’t think would enable government surveillance.
FRANK MCCOURT: Right.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But can you, if you are – whoever owns this is going to be powerful if you get 170 million Americans on a platform, especially young people, to consume the information about this. System. What guarantees do you give? Because Facebook and Twitter also collect information about consumers. Would you?
FRANK MCCOURT: Yeah, that’s exactly what we don’t want to do. So the reason why we want to move people to a new pile where you can’t harvest without permission, so that individuals can own and control their identity and their data, and get permission to use it, will in fact have an internet that respects people in place of exploitation. . Imagine empowering people. And just to be clear, Margaret, I don’t want to be the CEO of TikTok. We call it the people’s bid because we want it to empower people and put an end to this nonsense of exploiting people by collecting their data and abusing it, and in Tiktok’s case, actually a create a threat to national security.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, has now raised concerns about content moderation restricting freedom of expression. Do you share this concern, and what restrictions would you place on paid political advertising?
FRANK MCCOURT: I’ve said before that we certainly need better policies, but we need better technology now. We’ve built a tech stack and these giant apps are scraping our data and exploiting it. Why don’t we reverse the power? Why don’t we actually give people their data back? Our data is our personality in this era, let’s decide how to use it. Let us all decide what moderation we are comfortable with, what censorship we are comfortable with, what privacy.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, so the Surgeon General says you need a warning label because it’s damaging the mental health of young people in this country. Should people under 16 have access?
FRANK MCCOURT: Under current technology, I agree with the Surgeon General, under new technology. Listen, I’m a builder. My family has been building for five generations. This is a technical problem that can be solved. Let’s turn this ban on TikTok, this huge national security problem, into a solution for Americans. Let’s make it a win, a win, a win.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, in mid-January we’ll see what happens in this case, and we’ll look at your potential offer here. Thank you for joining us. We’ll be right back.
