Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said that she was moving “with the times” by using TikTok as voters change how they consume media.
DeLauro was asked about a recent TikTok video she uploaded and how important it was for her to use a platform she was not “native to.” The Connecticut lawmaker, 82, said that people need to “communicate where people are.”
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“You change, your environment changes, you know that,” DeLauro said on CNN’s Inside Politics. “There’s old school, and now you have to move, you know, you can either move with the times, or you can be left behind. My choice is to move with the times.”
CNN anchor Dana Bash said that the video was “really interesting” and that she “enjoyed” it.
DeLauro’s defense of her video comes after several Democratic lawmakers collaborated for a “choose your fighter” video, which featured Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) among others. The video was widely ridiculed online, with the Trump administration’s Rapid Response account deeming it “cringe” on X.
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President Donald Trump used TikTok before the 2024 presidential election and has over 15 million followers on the platform, even though he has not posted to TikTok since the election. Ocasio-Cortez has almost 4 million followers, Crockett has 1.4 million, and DeLauro has approximately 2,000.
The Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe Doescher assessed that social media campaigns some Democrats have participated in have “totally degraded the quality” of lawmakers in the United States. She also suggested that lawmakers are resorting to using “memes” rather than taking a serious stand against Trump’s agenda.