JD Vance accuses Google of 'conspiring with' Chinese government, shirking US

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JD Vance accuses Google of conspiring with the Chinese government

GOP Ohio Senate candidate discusses his platform on 'Fox News Primetime'

Google, one of the largest U.S. tech firms, is aligning itself with the Chinese government and effectively countering the United States as it continues to amass power over everyday Americans' lives and their communications, "Hillbilly Elegy" author and Ohio U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance told "Fox News Primetime" on Tuesday.

"Google, right now, is actively conspiring with and working with the Chinese government," said Vance. "They've actually been very open about this. At the same time, the 29-year-old woke idiots who work at Google refuse to allow Google to enter into contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense – this company is not a national company anymore." 

In a statement to Fox News, a Google spokesperson rejected Vance's allegation, calling it "baseless."

"In fact, unlike many of our competitors, our core services are not available in China, including Google Search, Gmail, Google Play and YouTube. We are proud to continue our long history of work with the U.S. government, including the Department of Defense, in many areas including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare," the spokesperson added.

Vance added that Republicans and the political right are "terrified" of wielding power, while the left craves it – suggesting that such inaction allows Google and Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and the like to continue to be more powerful than the average private company. In that regard, he added, when any lawmaker tries to regulate them, they will play their private-company card to be able to continue with their business model.

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"It's not actually invested in the nation that allowed it to become so wealthy and powerful," Vance noted.

"[Big tech companies] are already bigger than most nations on Earth," host Mark Steyn noted. "And the few nations they are not bigger than, such as China, they are entering into a malign alliance with -- yet the Right spends its time sort of having college-dorm-room abstract discussions about the issue."

Vance said Google and the other Big Tech firms that actively work against their own countries' values should indeed have such "special privileges" reined in.

"I'm just not okay with it anymore. I want my kids to grow up in a good country, not a terrible one. If I want my kids to grow up in a good country we actually have to push back against the institutions that are taking from it," he said.

Vance also responded to a bevy of media criticism over his Buckeye State U.S. Senate run, with Steyn playing a montage of liberal commentators on cable news mocking the 36-year-old for initially criticizing Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Vance told Steyn that at the time, just as today, his conservative values were paramount to him in choosing a presidential candidate and that he had misjudged the New York real estate mogul.

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"I obviously didn't fully appreciate [Trump's] appeal in 2016, but I find it hilarious that people are surprised given the way I do, given I have been going on Tucker Carlson's show for three years talking about these themes. I clearly believe and care about this stuff and have for a long time," he said in response.

"But I think other candidates can win on some of these themes because this is where the voters are. So many people think that Trump was all about personality. I don't they think they give him or the broader movement enough credit … it's about the ideas."