American Thought Leaders - ‘They’re at War for the American Mind’: Rep. Abe Hamadeh Wants to Ban China Daily From Congress

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

“They’re at war for the American mind. That’s why you have TikTok out there. That’s why you have DeepSeek. That’s why you have the China Daily. They’re out there trying to control information and your perception of reality,” says Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), who was recently elected for his first term.His first bill seeks to ban the widespread distribution of the China Daily in the House of Representatives. China Daily is a registered foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. In 2020, the newspaper was among many Chinese state media outlets designated as foreign missions in the United States.“It’s propaganda by a foreign government that’s trying to influence the highest echelons of the United States government. It’s unacceptable,” Hamadeh said.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

They're at war for the American mind. That's why you have TikTok out there. That's why you have Deep Seek. That's why you have the China Daily. They're out there trying to control information and your perception of reality. Abe Hamadeh is a Republican congressman from Arizona who was recently elected for his first term.

His first bill seeks to ban the widespread distribution of the China Daily in the House of Representatives. It's propaganda by a foreign government that's trying to influence the highest echelons of the United States government. It's unacceptable. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Congressman Abe Habaday, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Thank you for having me. Well, first of all, congratulations on being elected.

I understand you're in the district where the TSMC factories have been built in Arizona, which is quite fitting for our discussion today. Right. You're working on a bill which is a China daily ban, first out of the blocks. Why? Well, my first day elected, my first day in office here on Capitol Hill, I walk in, we see the typical newspapers, Washington Post, Politico, which have their own sets of issues.

But I look and I see the China daily news News and I was reading through some of it. And you have to be pretty discerning to actually discover that it was owned by the Communist Chinese Party and that they're registered foreign agents. So I had my team look into that. It's just fascinating to see the level of influence that the Communist Chinese have in our government. And I think it's unacceptable and we should ban it, at least for to be publicly distributed into the halls of Congress. I think a lot of people would say, yeah, I see it around. I mean, it's in our building, kind of all over the place. They just drop it off in front of people's doors, not in front of our door. But they just say,

yeah, well, it's around, but who really reads that? Well, people read it. I mean, that's why they're doing it. And they know how to target it. They're going to the halls of Congress, lobbyists and other organizations around Washington, D.C., because that's how the communist Chinese know to put their influence into the United States' highest levels of government and the people surrounding the government.

You know, you get a collection, rubber band collection of all these newspapers that are coming in. And when you put that China Daily at the same level as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, all of them, it's very scary because it's not. It's propaganda by a foreign government that's trying to influence the highest echelons of the United States government. It's unacceptable.

There was a time when it functioned as an insert in the New York Times, in the Washington Post, in the Wall Street Journal, at different times. And these media were paid millions of dollars for doing this. It was marked, people would say that it was marked as being a sponsored content or something like that. Sure. Well, and that was probably, you know, I can't stop what a private corporation does if they want to do that. But it goes to show you that the Chinese, they understand the communist Chinese understand that America is for sale, sadly, that they know how to influence and get themselves into the papers like New York Times, Wall Street Journal, all of them. But right now, you know, and this isn't a bill to ban it totally.

If people want to read this, if they want to read this paper on their own, they want to go online, they are totally free. If they want to subscribe personally to it, they are free to do it. But to have it distributed in the halls of Congress should not be allowed. You have a background in military intelligence, among other things. So you've kind of seen a bit more under the hood than perhaps a lot of people. And I'm wondering how much your background has influenced, you know, your particular interest in this right out of the blocks. Yeah, well, you know, I'm a son of immigrants. My family came from places like Syria, a family from Venezuela, so not so nice countries. So I kind of understand that freedom

is at stake, and it's always at stake. And it's only one generation away from being totally extinguished. And it's up to us to defend it. And when you look at the communist Chinese and their apparatus, what they've built, and they try to act like they're benevolent right now. And I think that's so concerning. When I was a military intelligence officer, I served overseas in the U.S US Army over in Saudi Arabia. And I remember at the time, Joe Biden had a really poor relationship with the Saudis. And I was sitting with these Saudi generals. And they would tell me, you know, they would say, we could always team up with the Chinese. And that was scary, because, you know, the US Saudi, we built Saudi Arabia,

I mean, Aramco is literally the, you know, Arabian American oil company. I mean, that country exists because of us. And to see that level that they're willing to possibly team up with China, because the United States wasn't going to be friendly with them. And to see how that China is coming in with their soft power, not just in the Middle East, but in places like Africa. It goes to show you how the extent that they're wanting to go to influence the world and to change their perception of them, which we know is a brutal brutal regime. But you know, my district, as you mentioned before, has all these Taiwanese companies moving in and they're moving in their big factory spending $50 billion. I mean, that's just one company. We have also

other companies that are related to the microchip industry all coming into my district. So I understand the importance of the military aspect of making sure that we're competing with China on the semiconductor, the microchips. My district also has the Luke Air Force Base, and I serve on the Armed Services Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee. So I want to take care of those who defend our freedom here at home. Let's talk for a moment about the importance of getting this kind of extremely high-level chip production into America, which is a lot safer place than Taiwan right now. Right. And if you look at who actually started this out was President Donald Trump. He was the one who really led the Taiwanese to move operations into the United States. Joe Biden tries to claim credit because they passed that, you know, bloated CHIPS Act that had, you

know, a lot of, I think President Trump wants to renegotiate so much of it. But it was actually President Trump, Wilbur Ross, and so many others that were the ones who were convincing the Taiwanese companies to move their operations in United States because you know China wants they have aspirations obviously to take back Taiwan and it put the United States in you know very dangerous spot to have all these semiconductors being controlled by the Chinese but right now TSMC is one of them it's obviously one of the biggest microchip industries but they're also moving into Europe they're diversifying geographically quite a bit but but we are glad to have them in the United States

and in Arizona particularly. But, you know, I always said this on the campaign trail too, you know, Arizona is a great place for business and to have these companies move into it, but how could we have them come in when we don't have a secure border? It was just shocking to me because we understand the number. I mean, the tens of thousands of communist Chinese who are flooding our southern border under Joe Biden was unacceptable. And obviously, as an intelligence officer, I understand that my district would have been a target of intelligence gathering operations. So that's something that I was really making sure to hit home on when I've met with so many representatives in Arizona from these companies, that the reason why we have to secure a border is precisely to protect from intelligence gatherings from foreign adversaries.

Just a bit more on the CHIPS Act. It put major export controls on some of these most premier value chips and so forth. And it seems like, from what we've been hearing about DeepSeek, it seems like Communist China has been able to evade these export controls and use, you know, there's been allegations of something like 10,000 in NVIDIA chips and things like that for doing the things that the CHIPS Act was trying to stop, I would argue. Yeah, I think that's exactly rightPS Act was trying to stop, I would argue. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. But that goes to show you the extent that the communist Chinese have an ability to influence,

an ability to skirt around even the best laws and the best intention laws that we've got. And it's because they understand that this is a race for AI. This is a race for the chip and chip industry. And for them to be able to do that, I mean, if you look at how they were acquiring those NVIDIA chips, I mean, a lot of it was going into Singapore or other countries and invading it that way. It's a sophisticated, you have to give them credit. I never, as an intelligence officer, you never underestimate your enemy. You can't. And if you do, that's when it's game over. So we always have to be constantly on guard with it. And that's exactly why the China Daily piece comes into it. Because if we allow that type of influence to happen in the halls of a Congress, the people's house, what does it say about us as a government?

Can you imagine us putting our propaganda like Voice of America into the communist Chinese? They would never tolerate that. And they don't tolerate it. And yet here we are, we're tolerating that the communist Chinese are able to influence and infiltrate in that aspect. You know, something that isn't talked a lot about, which you just made me remember is just there's also a symbolic element here. Aha, we're here right in the highest levels of, you know, where the U.S. lawmakers sit, where they make their decisions. You know, we're here and we have that influence. And that's a kind of a statement, you know, to frankly, the world, isn't it? Absolutely. They understand that if they're able to get their message out and if they're able to influence not just the congressman, because I understand I've got a staff and I've got a team, if they're able to get their message out, and if they're able to influence not just the congressman,

because I understand, I've got a staff and I've got a team, if they're able to infiltrate and get some of the, if you look at the halls of Congress, how many, the staffers are quite young. They may not know when they're receiving the China Daily, they may not know that this is actually paid for by a foreign government. And so if they're able to influence the staffers

who then go ahead and influence their boss, their congressman, that's a big problem. I've met with Uyghurs and I've seen the plight that they've had to go through. Again, these staffers who continue to read this and if they could influence a vote, for instance, or it can influence sanctions on the Communist Chinese. It moves far past just information warfare. I mean, there's real life consequences happening. And as an intelligence officer, somebody who served in the military,

you have to understand that propaganda information, this is the new reality of warfare. We're seeing that on the battlefields in Ukraine and Israel, everywhere now. It is really a battle of getting that message out and what the truth is. And that's why it's so important to have honest, fair news organizations out there. You know, I look at this situation and what the communist Chinese have been doing and

their their their apparatus is sophisticated and you have to give them credit for it. And if we don't combat against this, what is next for them? You know, that's what scares me. They understand the level and sphere of influence that they're doing. And I serve on the Veterans Affairs Committee, and something that I discovered is that a lot of these veteran service organizations, which are amazing, amazing organizations that want to help the veterans, and oftentimes what the communist Chinese do is they actually go in

and give a donation to the veteran service organizations under TikTok, for instance. That's something that we had to deal with is that TikTok was giving money to veterans organizations. And when those veterans go and, you know, want to defend TikTok or, and they don't even know that they're being used in that way. And that is what's, that is what's sad to see, and that's why you have to be constantly on guard about it. I mean, that's fascinating because, you know, of course, most of these veterans organizations are pretty cash strapped, frankly.

Yeah. And you can imagine, hey, look, this is, why shouldn't I take that money, right? I mean, what I mean is that it helps them, right? But then it engenders that goodwill later on, and that's, I guess, what's being bought. Oh, it's so sad. It's so sad that veterans organizations have to even raise money from a foreign government or what they don't even know is a foreign government in order to operate. We should be taking care of our veterans.

We should make sure that their veterans organizations are self-sufficient. And when they're able to see where they could influence with soft power, the communist Chinese and some of these other countries, they capitalize on that. They capitalize on knowing that, you know, Americans love our veterans and to have an ability to influence a veteran's organizations to take a position stance on a bill or a resolution, that's powerful. And that's why they do it. And so many of these groups don't realize that they're being used in that way. And that's why it's important for us to understand that, hey, you are part of an intelligence

operation and you may not know it and this is the reason why. So making sure we get that out there is important. I leafed through a couple of editions of the China Daily as preparing for this discussion. And you make a really good point. There's no suggestion in there of any sort that there's anything other than kind of a harmonious life within China. But it's kind of what's not in there

is perhaps even more important than what's in there. It's beyond just the free press. This isn't the free press. This is a foreign government operated newspaper designed to, it's in English. You know, there's an English for a reason. Why? Because they want to influence the United States,

specifically the people who make the key decisions in our government. It is designed there to present a viewpoint that everything is going well in China. Just perusing through the newspaper, they're talking about the AI and how China is going to be leading the AI revolution with Deep Seek and all that. That is their psyop. That is their propaganda piece. And that's why we have to be on guard against it. You said something earlier. You said America's for sale. And that could be viewed as quite a contentious statement. Is America really for sale? What do you mean by that?

Well, it's obvious. I mean, if you look at our farmlands are for sale, that we sell to the communist Chinese near air bases, near military bases. And this is something that other countries would never tolerate. And it's something that we have to put our patriotic duty ahead of the dollar. That's something that our corporations should be doing. It's something that every individual should be doing. It's key. And I respect other countries in that regard, that they would never sacrifice their honor for the dollar. And sadly, too often when you talk about these global corporations, and I hate that word, global corporations, because these corporations, they started off in America.

They were built off American workers. They were built because of the laws we have here, because of capitalism, the free enterprise system. And yet, then they go and capitulate to a country like the Communist Chinese. And you know, the Chinese are very smart. You know, they've shifted away from Marxist-Leninism, now it's market-Leninism, right? So it's so fascinating to see how they've been operating and maneuver into the global marketplace. And when they take advantage of the United States

laws in order to influence, it's a big problem. But it's something that we as a culture need to be on guard against. Let's dig into the nuts and bolts of the bill. And you mentioned FARA, which is the Foreign Registration Act, also in here. Just explain to me how the bill works. So this one specifically targets the communist Chinese. It prevents a foreign agent, so somebody who's registered as a foreign agent that's tied with the communist Chinese, prevents them from distributing and it prevents these third-party contractors, because that's ultimately who's the one passing out these newspapers. It prevents them from distributing the papers in the House of Representatives. You think there will be other acts of this nature that will follow?

Because I guess China Daily is not the only type of media that's influenced by a foreign government out there? We kept it limited to the communist Chinese because to me, it's a good gauge to see how far deep the communist Chinese have reached into the halls of government. That's why I did it. I could have kept it broad. We could have kept it for all FARA, which eventually I hope to see happen. But I wanted to kind of assess who signs onto the piece of legislation, who votes for it. I thought it was going to be an interesting test to see possibly how deep the communist Chinese infiltration has occurred. That's fascinating. Another thing that I noticed, you know, it's a resolution and

often resolutions are described as not having a lot of teeth. It's just kind of a statement from Congress. But in this instance, it actually does have teeth because the congressional building will have to abide by it. So that's a very interesting use of the resolution. Yeah, exactly. And it's because it becomes easier to pass, right? I mean, this is something, again, why I chose the communist Chinese and specifically targeted China Daily is because once it's on the House floor, I want to see these members of Congress trying to justify allowing a newspaper that is foreign controlled by the communist Chinese. I'm very curious to see. And I think that I'm an intelligence guy. I'm always thinking about the second and third order effects and looking at the consequences, intentional consequences, unintended consequences as well. We have to police our own in the halls of Congress, and that's what it intends to do.

You mentioned TikTok. We talked about DeepSeek briefly. How do you view these apps on the phones of Americans and computers of Americans. Well, I understand that many Americans like TikTok. I've used TikTok before. President Trump seems to like TikTok. It seems to get the truth out in so many ways. However, it becomes concerning when you understand that the TikTok platform and so many of these others have an algorithm, and ability to influence the end-user in a way that could be quite destructive. Deep-seek is something that

you know as we mentioned earlier the ability for it to wipe about a trillion dollars half a trillion dollars from a marketplace based off of conjecture we don't know what what the reality is of deep seek is, whether it, how much it really costs them to produce, what the chips that they're actually using for it. And for them to be able to wipe out that market share of the United States, I mean, half a trillion, that's bigger than the GDP of most countries. And that's the scary aspect of it. That when I talked to you about this earlier, it is information warfare, this is propaganda, this is psychological warfare. And we have to be in that's where the when we

talked about the victims, that is the victim when you when you wipe out, you know, a lot of Americans bank accounts, and then their investments because of that ability. And who knows if then at that point, again, since the marketplace is open, who knows if then at that point, again, since the marketplace is open, who knows if you had these foreign, you know, countries come in and buy the dip, so they say, in order to influence the market in that aspect. So it's so fascinating to watch. It's something that, you know, we will be watching in the future. You know, I had a interview recently with Nicholas Cheyenne, the former chief software officer of the Air Force and Space Force, who has an AI company

himself right now. And he's run a ton of tests, he told me, on, you know, he runs tests on all the models, including DeepSeek, which he, you know, sort of air gapped, put into its own place, because, of course, he wasn't going to go on the actual deep-seek platform. And he found it wasn't a particularly great model. He believes they just tested it against the benchmarks. The benchmarks looked really good. But it's fine. He says it's a fine model, but the American models are stronger. So to your point, right, absolutely, this was an information op. I mean, it's almost like the case in point example of how effective propaganda can be. Is there a better example off the top of my head? I mean, half a trillion dollars, that hurts, right? Absolutely. And again, I mean, it was,

imagine the China Daily pushing that out there and the media pushing out there that deep seek suddenly has taken over AI. That is the information that we have to be on guard against. And, you know, we were talking about this earlier to see the level of influence the communist Chinese has. It's not just in Washington, D.C. It is in the heartland. I mean, the bio weapons lab that they had the ability to produce another type of disease out in California. And you saw that just recently, the ports in L.A. that have communist Chinese infiltration, and as well as the secret police stations that are occurring in our cities, as well as the Confucius Institutes in our education systems.

That is the level of information warfare that we are fighting and that so many Americans want to act like is not happening. But it is happening. And it's not because they're just trying to export, you know, the cultural traditions of China, which, of course, has a very rich tradition that has been utterly destroyed by the ideology of communism. To your point, it's something to the tune of, you know, years ago, we knew it was approximately $10 billion that was being spent on these influence operations, United Front operations influencing local communities, both Chinese and otherwise, through Chinese agents of influence in these

communities. I mean, the scale of it today, we think it's something more like 20 billion, perhaps even more than that. And that's not even talking about, you know, these operations like DeepSeek or TikTok and everything else. I mean, the scale of it is almost unfathomable. It's not just information warfare. There's a war going on here in the United States with fentanyl. You know, my district, Arizona, I'm a border state. I see the fentanyl coming in from the chemical compound being shipped in from the communist Chinese into the hands of the drug cartels.

And then they go in and ship this all across the United States and get the American citizens drugged up and addicted. And that's why President Trump, you see what he's been doing so successfully with these tariff threats and with going after our border countries like Canada and Mexico, but also the communist Chinese. It's so critical. I want the American people to understand that we may not have asked for this, for this type of war, but they's, you know,

they're at war with us and they're at war for the American mind. That's why you have TikTok out there. That's why you have deep seek. That's why you have the China daily. They're out there trying to control information and, and your perception of reality. And we have to understand that talk to, talk to people who live through the horrors of the communist and Maoist revolution. That's how we keep this reality and what's real alive and for us to understand to fight back. That's why I'm a member of Congress. I'm the son of immigrants from Syria, from my family from Venezuela. So I understand that if freedom is extinguished here at home,

there is no place to go. So we can never allow ourselves to bend the knee to the Marxist communists. So before we actually finish up, I do want to touch a little bit on the new foreign policy directions that the Trump administration has taken. You have the Secretary of State Rubio in South America. China comes up. We're talking about these border deals with the tariffs in Canada and Mexico. There seems to be some pretty serious negotiations happening within moments of these tariffs going into place, arguably also both really about China. I'm curious what you think about this. And frankly, the Greenland question, I would argue, is very much all about China as well in a lot of ways. So tell me your thoughts on this.

Well, I'm glad you framed it in that way because it is true. The nexus of the communist Chinese is global. I mean, you're talking about the Panama Canal, something that the United States built with our workers. And yet the Panama government had a memorandum of understanding to allow the Chinese to operate it, essentially. And when you saw Marco Rubio go down there and meet with the leader there, we are going to change this ship around. Because if we don't, the communist Chinese are going to totally capitalize their soft power and influence and take over all of these governments, which they have done so successfully. And that's something that you have to credit President Trump. He understands what's

going on. He's been saying this for a while, too. This isn't just happened overnight. This has been going on for decades. You know, there's a lot of people who have been ringing the alarms about what's been going on, but it took President Trump to take office and to actually execute on this plan. Well, Congressman Abe Hamadeh, such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you. Thank you all for joining Congressman Abe Hamadeh and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.