President Joe Biden met with eight users of the social media app TikTok as part of an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., arranged by the Democratic National Committee, according to Washington Post TikTok correspondent Taylor Lorenz.
Biden on Tuesday had "an hour-long private meeting" with the TikTokers, whom the DNC brought to the nation's capital "in hopes that their posts will turn out votes for Democrats in the Nov. 8 midterms," which are widely expected to be a Republican wave. The TikTokers also met with former president Barack Obama and toured the Supreme Court and the Capitol.
The DNC's trip for TikTokers comes as inflation reaches unprecedented levels and crime rates rise across the country, surging 15.2 percent in New York City.
It also comes as Democrats reorient their party to prioritize the wants of wealthy, elite young people. The Biden administration in August went through with a potentially trillion-dollar scheme to cancel college debt, which has already hiked the federal deficit. The Democratic Party also disproportionately prefers hiring white, elite college graduates even as it hemorrhages minority voters, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
All the TikTokers Lorenz mentions by name are white, and all but one are under 30.
While many of the TikTok users "had previously been largely apolitical, encouraging their fans to vote but not explicitly backing parties or candidates," the DNC did not sugarcoat its objective.
The committee hosted a kickoff dinner where conversation "focused on issues like reproductive rights and strategizing how to best leverage [the TikTokers'] audiences for the midterms." At the TikTokers' meeting with Obama, the former president was even blunter, "calling a Democratic victory in November crucial."
Mattie Westbrouck, 22, even implied that the DNC had identified specific congressional districts for the TikTokers to target in their videos. "The Michigan third district was really important," Westbrouck said. "I'm going to try to promote content to reach those voters best."
Lorenz, who is best known for whining, obsessing over a 15-year-old girl's social media feed, doxxing an anonymous Twitter user, publicly lashing out at colleagues, and implying that she lies about her age for attention, noted that Republicans have been "harshly critical of TikTok's Chinese ownership."
She neglected to mention, however, the mounting evidence that the app's Chinese parent company spies on American citizens. The Biden administration allows the company to skirt foreign lobbying disclosures, the Free Beacon has reported.