Can we please have a more serious national debate about the threat assessment claims in this EO and other Trump actions designed to frame US-China relations as Cold War 2.0, Xi is Stalin, communists are taking over the world, etc. https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1291605634278780928

Im no expert, on either the technology or China. Maybe Trump & team are right. I just wish their threat assessments -- their intelligence claims -- were interrogated more closely. We're a democracy. The absence of a serious debate about these matters scares me.

We've done this before. We lined up behind bad intelligence & flawed assumptions and ended up in wars in Iraq & Vietnam, fake missile gaps with the Soviets, searching for communists in Hollywood. (Before launching a new Cold War, shouldn't we learn the lessons of the last one?)

& call me crazy, but our president hasn't demonstrated a commitment to facts, evidence, data, etc. Why are we just taking him at his word on these most fundamental issues regarding our national security?

So let's have a hearings, a real debate (one can be "tough on China" without being stupid on China), greater explanation of the intelligence guiding these decisions & just greater oversight & scrutiny over what Trump is doing before following him blindly into Cold War 2.0.