Rep. Waltz Blasts NBC for Spiking Olympic Genocide Ad

BUCK: We have the Winter Olympics underway in China right now. A lot of questions about what the world should make of this and what should corporate America do to speak out given the obvious and extreme human rights abuses underway in the Chinese Communist Party’s territory? Well, will we actually have some companies that will speak out? Will they be honest about this?

Apparently not, at least in the case of NBC, refusing to air an ad that featured Representative Michael Waltz, also a veteran of U.S. Army, and Enes Kanter Freedom, I believe, right, is his now official name, which is awesome: Enes Kanter Freedom. We have Michael Waltz, Congressman Waltz of Florida with us now to talk about what went down here. Congressman, always a pleasure.

REP. WALTZ: Hey, thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it.

BUCK: So, just tell us, what is the issue here? You want to run an ad saying what, and NBC wouldn’t do it? Actually, you know what? We actually have the ad. Why don’t we play the ad and you can tell us what happened. Play that.

BUCK: Pretty straightforward. Not pulling any punches. What did NBC say?

REP. WALTZ: Yeah. NBC, while we reserved the airtime, obviously we made the ad together with Enes Kanter Freedom, and we wanted to call out these companies that are complicit in genocide and propping up this propaganda platform for the communist dictatorship in China. And NBC came back, their legal department, at the last moment and said, “Well, we’ll run it.

“You just have to materially change this, that and other things and take down all the company logos.” (chuckles) So it was a nonrejection rejection. But, you know, their censorship or attempt at it has actually shown a huge spotlight on it and it’s gone viral all over the world. And, guys, you know, our whole point was twofold. One, we want to call out this hypocrisy of all of these companies, like Coca-Cola and Airbnb and Intel, Visa.

You know, they want to preach potential justice. They want to contribute to these causes here in the United States. They want to boycott Georgia and Major League Baseball and virtue signal all over the place. But yet when it comes to millions of Muslims being loaded into railcars and sent off to concentration camps, forced abortion and sterilization for the women…

The men are sent out to cotton fields and are harvesting sugar for Coca-Cola and Nike, yet they want to turn a blind eye to all of that, not to mention unleashing covid on the world, threatening Taiwan (chuckles), stamping out freedom in Hong Kong and a massive built buildup, right? So we’re gonna take the case to the American people.

You know, they are getting the message. NBC’s ratings are in the tank for the Olympics. But the real theme of the whole thing is to the American people: When you see “Made in China,” put it down. It’s not just a human rights issue. It’s a national security issue at this point and, of course, an American jobs issue.

CLAY: Congressman, what should we have done? I agree with you; I think it’s disgusting that we went to China and that we’re actually having the Winter Olympics in Beijing. What was the right decision? What should we have done? Because obviously these athletes deserve the opportunity to compete, but I agree with you; I think a lot of people are tuning out of the Winter Olympics because of their disgust with our bowing down to China.

REP. WALTZ: No, that’s absolutely right. What should have happened is the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, should have moved the games, and we’ve been asking them to do that for years. They had ample time to do it. But when it became clear that IOC was not going to do that — and that’s a whole separate conversation, by the way. They get billions of dollars tax-free from these sponsors.

We’ve introduced legislation to revoke their tax-free status, and there’s a level of corruption there that needs to be fully exposed. Here nor there. Look, I introduced a measure that we should have boycotted. And I support the athletes as well. It’s the IOC that’s forcing them to choose between their morals and values and being able to compete.

But, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of people point to the 1980 boycott and say, “Well, that wasn’t successful.” The correct analogy was actually Apartheid in South Africa, and the IOC did take a principled stand then and said, “We’re not gonna have the Olympics in South Africa.” Heck, they didn’t even allow the South African athletes to compete anywhere in the world and all of corporate America and the activists, at least, and everyone else supported that. I think that’s the appropriate analogy. They did that for 30 years and did effect change, and I think that’s the approach we should be taking to this communist dictatorship that has the largest genocide going on right now since the Holocaust.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Congressman Michael Waltz of Florida, also U.S. Army Special Forces. Congressman, what about the problem here that some would start to say — and by no means is this something that should be an acceptable status quo, but I think aware all seeing that a lot of companies view China as too big to boycott, essentially, or too big to take major action against.

How do we change that? I mean, the problem is they’re gonna keep looking at this and say, “We’re companies. We have a profit motivate here.” Now, they they’ll pretend and they’ll go with wokeness and talk about how much they hate cops because, you know, be a Democrat moral panic around BLM or whatever.

REP. WALTZ: That’s right.

BUCK: But on China they’re like, “We need access to this market and the Chinese will shut us down.” How do we shift the game here, how do we shift the table so that they aren’t always just gonna come back to, “Look, we agree with you guys but we got a business to run”?

REP. WALTZ: Yeah, they gotta make money, right? And I want them to make money. I built a business myself, and am a proud capitalist to a point. But when you have a dictatorship that is openly talking about replacing the United States us as a world leader, that’s openly talking about the replacing the American dream with the China dream — and in the wake of covid, which I think was the real wake-up call for the American people on choking off euro critical supply chains.

Masks, gowns, and gloves, they now control 90% of our pharmaceuticals, 90% of our rare-earth minerals, 90% of our computer chips, if they end up taking Taiwan, that’s unacceptable, and we cannot… From a national security standpoint, we cannot have that. Oh, by the way, their navy is now larger than ours, than the U.S. navy, and their space force is launching more into space than the rest of the world — including us — combined.

So look. I want those jobs in America, that manufacturing in America. But if they can’t be for a variety of good business reasons, how about Malaysia? How about India? That’s a 1.4 billion-person market you can sell into. How about if we incentivize them to make in Central America and you kill two birds with one stone: The migration issue plus getting those supply chains out of our greatest adversary.

But I think this is a case where we’re gonna have to force these corporate CEOs, but then again, I think the American people are getting the message. I had someone call me and say, “I was in a diner in North Florida; a patron asked the waitresses to turn on the Olympics and another waitresses said, ‘You know what? We don’t support genocide here and we don’t support China here.'”

That was from a waitresses in north Florida. So I do think the message is getting out, and, you know, they want to talk about defunding the police? Let’s defund dictatorships, defund our greatest adversary. And again, when people see “Made in China,” put it down. It’s human rights, it’s jobs, and it’s national security.

CLAY: Congressman, you mentioned the situation in north Florida and that reaction inside of a diner. What’s gonna happen in the midterms based on what you’re seeing in the state of Florida in 2022 and also in the governor’s race there? How optimistic are you that Republicans are gonna do well in your state?

REP. WALTZ: Look, I think we’re in great shape. People have been voting with their feet for two years and coming to the free state of Florida, number one. Number two, for the first time in Florida’s history we now have more registered Republicans than we do Democrats. By comparison, in 2012 there were 700,000 more Democrats than Republicans. That’s now flipped for the first time in our history.

The governor is being proven right on everything from therapeutics to masks in schools, our tax treatment, our beaches. Look, I think we’re in strong shape. But we can’t ever take anything for granted. There’s only two ways to run for office — unopposed and scared and we’re gonna keep taking the message out. And, by the way, from 2016 to 2020 we saw a shift to Republicans in every demographic group. In every Hispanic group. Amongst African-Americans.

Particularly African-American women over the school choice. Amongst Jewish voters — everything that President Trump has done and Ron DeSantis and the Republican-led Congress has done for Israel. I’m very optimistic, and again (chuckles), the biggest indicator is people voting with their feet and they’re coming into our great state at the rate of a thousand a day.

CLAY: Congressman, appreciate the time. Great ad. Thanks for spending the time with us and sharing that ad, and we look forward to spending time with you sometime soon.

REP. WALTZ: Okay. We’ll keep up the fight. Thanks, guys.