‘Happy to provide additional basic facts to you or your staff that I learned in elementary school. Ask anytime,’ California Democrat tells Tom Cotton

Tom Cotton is facing widespread criticism after he asked Singaporean TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew if had “ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party”.

The Arkansas Republican senator pursued the much-ridiculed line of questioning during a Senate hearing on child safety on social media on Wednesday, which was attended by a number of big tech CEOs such as Mr Chew.

“You said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore – of what nation are you a citizen?” Mr Cotton asked.

“Singapore,” the CEO responded.

“Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?” Mr Cotton then asked.

“Senator, I’m Singaporean – no,” Mr Chew responded.

Unable to let the matter go, Mr Cotton asked: “Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?”

“No, senator, again, I’m Singaporean,” the tech CEO said.

  • PorradaVFR
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    929 months ago

    To be fair, Cotton is an utter dipshit so his ignorance is genuine.

    • themeatbridge
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      539 months ago

      Are we sure that his name is actually Cotton? Like maybe someone asked once, and he had to check the back of his underwear?

    • @[email protected]
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      9 months ago

      To be fair, Cotton is an utter dipshit so his ignorance is genuine.

      And yet he was able to get enough votes to get elected…

      As much of a moron as he clearly is, the voters must be even worse.

      • @[email protected]
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        69 months ago

        That’s ignoring all the systems, rules, gatekeeping, money, power, influence, propaganda etc that got him served up to the voters. And what was the alternative? We need to just select like 10.000 random people as representatives so the systems can’t prefilter and bias the selection anymore.

      • PorradaVFR
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        59 months ago

        I suspect it’s the rationale of “he’s our moron”. They’re fine with incompetence and corruption if it hurts the other side more than their own.

    • Lev_Astov
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      29 months ago

      tbf, if the guy was a Chinese communist, it’d have to be secret, I guess.