Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., released a threatening voicemail he received from someone who wanted him to vote against a bill that would force the sale of TikTok. The caller left the voicemail with the senator’s office and stated, “I’ll shoot you and find you and cut you into pieces.”
Tillis said he reported the call to police but does not feel threatened. The caller’s age could determine the consequences. If they are a minor, Tillis wants their parents to talk to them. If they are an adult, Tillis said they will probably regret they called.
“If you rise to that level in my office, you will be reported to police and I will move forward with prosecution,” Tillis said. “Done it, there are people in prison right now for having done that. You don’t play that kind of game with me.”
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The voicemail was left by a laughing, young girl and other voices laughing in the background could be heard.
“If you ban TikTok I will find you and shoot you,” the caller said. “That’s people’s jobs and that’s my only entertainment. And people make money off there too, you know, I’m trying to get rich like that.”
While the bill to force parent company ByteDance to either sell TikTok or be banned in the United States moved through the House, the company sent a message through the app to all users.
“Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO,” the message stated.
The message even included a button for people to call their representatives.
“Having that little girl, or young girl, call my office and threaten to shoot me and cut me, I’m not worried about that,” Tillis said. “I’m not trying to act like a victim. But what I’m trying to point to is a really bad practice and a bad decision on TikTok’s part and it really just provides more weight to the case to move forward with the bill.”
Tillis blames TikTok for the flood of phone calls that Congress has received. He said the company’s government relations team chose the wrong tactic.
“Their behavior and their all call to congressmen, they ought to rethink,” Tillis told reporters. “Anybody that works in their government relations organization should be fired, they should rethink their public outreach initiatives.”
“I mean, they’re really building the case that we have to do something more broadly with social media platforms,” Tillis added. “With a simple tweet, you can mislead these kids and get them to mobilize and make those sorts of statements to a U.S. senator and congressman.”
The bill was approved in the House but is stalled in the Senate. The chamber is still trying to determine whether it will pass the House bill with amendments or write an entirely new bill. Either way, it will be a time consuming process that will require the House to reapprove it before the president can sign the bill into law.
