Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said in a recent exclusive interview with Breitbart News that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is carrying out a malign influence operation against her due to her criticism of the party and its harm to the American people.
“It’s nothing new for me to be informed that the Chinese Communist Party is trying to carry out an adverse or malign influence campaign against me. They’ve been very active in social, on social media against me. This is something that has gone on over an extended period of time. … And this time around, they — they’re trying to spread misinformation and disinformation in my election,” she said.
Blackburn is running for re-election against challenger Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-TN) and has a 23-point lead over her, according to a recent poll conducted by the Beacon Center of Tennessee.
The senator recently released a campaign ad called “It’s Time to Break China,” in which she called for tougher measures against China. In the ad, she says:
Some say I’m too tough, that I should be more delicate. But you know what? It’s time to break some China. China stole our jobs, sent us a virus. They’re buying up our land and spying on us. I’m Marsha Blackburn, and I approved this message because we’re going to have to break a lot more China to save America.
Blackburn told Breitbart News that “people are loving” the ad, “because they can relate to it.”
“People know that China took our jobs. They know they sent us a virus. They know that they don’t take responsibility, that they don’t take their trade agreements [seriously], especially with Tennessee, [agricultural] products and exports that we have,” she said. “People know that China is part of the axis of evil and that they’re spying on our citizens. They sent a spy balloon to go sashaying across our country. They know that TikTok is something that endangers our children. So people relate to the China ad on so many different levels.”
She said she hopes after the 2024 election that Congress can get bipartisan agreement to to make certain China “keeps up their end of the deal.”
“When it comes to our trade, we also need to be firm with them and sanction them when they start throwing spy balloons across the country. We need to make certain that the divestment of TikTok takes place so that China no longer is collecting this data and information on our children. We also need to pass a bill that that disallows these Confucius Institutes and Confucius classrooms in our K through 12 schools and on our college campuses, because that is a part of China’s soft propaganda,” she said.
She said the CCP also “regularly” probes United States military bases, as well as cyberattacks hospitals.
“And not only that, I was talking with one of our hospital administrators, and they were talking about the number of hack attacks that they get, cyber attacks that they get, not only every week, but every day. And most of this is coming from China or other actors in the axis of evil, which are Russia, Iran, North Korea and China,” she said.
“China is our, our primary adversary and threat, when you look at their push to be globally dominant by the time we get to the midpoint of this century, and when you read The Hundred-Year Marathon, you see what China is up to, when you look at what they are doing through the Belt and Road Initiative and what they are doing with debt diplomacy.
“Then see what China is up to on a global basis when you see them coming into our hemisphere and entering into debt diplomacy agreements and establishing ports, you see that they’re trying to spread their footprint,” she said.
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