Top Biden adviser with TikTok ties told White House allies to use the app
Jerry Dunleavy
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A top Biden White House adviser who founded a lobbying firm that has been hired by TikTok reportedly urged allies of President Joe Biden to use the Chinese government-linked app to promote Biden’s agenda earlier this year.
SKDK, a political consulting and public affairs agency whose founding partner Anita Dunn is a top Biden adviser and whose former employees fill out key roles across the Biden administration, was reportedly hired by TikTok in the past few months, and a new report from Politico said Dunn has used her White House position to promote the use of the app.
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The outlet said Dunn “pointed allies toward the app as an influential messaging tool during a ‘Women’s Community Engagement Update’ hosted by the White House Office of Public Engagement” ahead of Biden’s State of the Union speech in February 2023. The outlet said Dunn told participants on the call that “the White House wanted people to brandish the administration’s accomplishments on social media.”
Dunn also reportedly said the White House could not use TikTok, “but she suggested that if people on the call were users of the app, then they should share parts of the president’s speech on TikTok.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates told the outlet that Dunn’s actions were not different from what the Biden administration has said “for years,” adding, “We work with outside supporters to spread our message on the major social media platforms, including TikTok.”
The Biden White House has collaborated with TikTok influencers and celebrities such as Benny Drama, the Jonas Brothers, and Bill Nye, with the videos shared on the accounts of those stars. The White House itself does not have an account.
SKDK founder Dunn was named a Biden senior adviser in May 2022, with the White House announcing she would “assist in advancing the President’s policy and communications objectives.” Dunn, who has been close to Biden for many years, had also briefly worked in the Biden White House early in his presidency and played a large role in his 2020 presidential campaign.
Dunn said in a 2009 speech that Mao Zedong, the brutal dictator who led the Chinese Communist Party and was the first leader of the People’s Republic of China, was one of her two “favorite political philosophers” along with Mother Teresa, calling the duo “two of the people that I turn to most.”
Dunn’s husband, longtime Democratic political fixture and three-decade Perkins Coie law firm veteran Bob Bauer, was also hired by Biden late last year to serve as personal attorney to the president and to run point on his response to his burgeoning classified documents saga.
There are other SKDK veterans currently serving in the Biden White House, including Kate Berner and Herbert Ziskend, who are both deputy White House communications directors.
Multiple other former SKDK employees also hold important jobs in the Biden administration, including Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh, Interior Department press secretary Tyler Cherry, assistant U.S. Trade Representative for public affairs Adam Hodge, and Energy Department deputy chief of staff Bridget Bartol.
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TikTok has thrived during the two-plus years of Biden’s presidency after unsuccessful efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to crack down on the app.
Biden officials emphasize a national security review of the app is underway. The National Security Council said last summer that a separate review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States “is ongoing.”