Trump has vowed to save TikTok. Lawmakers are wondering how.

Author of the article:

Washington Post

Cristiano Lima-Strong, The Washington Post

Published Jan 11, 2025  •  5 minute read

A man carries a Free TikTok sign in front of the courthouse where the hush-money trial of Donald Trump was underway on April 15, 2024, in New York. Photo by Ted Shaffrey /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TikTok is barreling toward a ban in the United States as soon as next weekend, with the Supreme Court signaling Friday no likely reprieve for the Chinese-owned video app. That raises the odds that President-elect Donald Trump is the popular platform’s best hope for survival – and leaves TikTok hawks bracing for his next move.

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“The one thing about President-elect Trump: You just don’t know what he’s going to do,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia), one of the most prominent backers of the ban-or-sale law Congress passed last year. “But the law is the law.”

At stake is the fate of a social media platform used by 170 million U.S. users and hailed by supporters as a bastion of free expression. Government officials from both parties, meanwhile, have pilloried TikTok as a potential vehicle for Chinese spying and influence-peddling.

Trump himself pushed for TikTok to be banned or sold by ByteDance, its China-based parent company, during his first administration. He warned in a 2020 executive order that TikTok “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information” and could be “used for disinformation campaigns that benefit” China. TikTok has long called the charges baseless. The company declined to comment Friday.

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But after lawmakers began advancing a measure to force a ban or sale in March, Trump’s stance softened amid lobbying by GOP megadonors and the app’s emergence as an important messaging tool for his 2024 campaign. Trump said a ban could benefit Facebook, one of TikTok’s biggest competitors, which he called “an enemy of the people.”

“Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” Trump posted on social media last week, alongside metrics of his reach on the site.

Late last month, Trump urged the Supreme Court to delay implementation of the ban, which is set to take effect Jan. 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration. Unless the court or the Biden administration intervenes, app-store giants Apple and Google and internet hosting providers could face billions in fines if they keep TikTok alive on their services past that date.

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In its brief, Trump’s legal team touted the president-elect’s “consummate dealmaking expertise” in arguing that his incoming administration should be allowed to broker a resolution. His lawyers did not argue one way or the other on the constitutionality of the law, but only if it is upheld would Trump get an opportunity to make a deal to save it.

In a hearing Friday, a majority of Supreme Court justices seemed inclined to let the law stand, with a decision possible as early as next week.

Trump has pledged to “save” the app, but the path to doing so is deeply murky, and spokespeople for the incoming administration did not return a request for comment Friday.

Some of the law’s strongest Republican supporters said they are still rooting for the Supreme Court to uphold it – including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Trump’s pick for secretary of state. (Asked about that possibility, Rubio said, he “of course” would welcome it. “I voted for the law.”) “They will uphold it,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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But Rubio and other Republicans said they had not spoken to Trump about his plans, and several said they do not have a clear sense of what he might do.

“We’ll wait and see what the [Trump] administration does,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the new chair of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee.

Some expressed hope that Trump could be persuaded that selling the app remains the best course of action. “I think when the president gets briefed up, he’ll understand it’s in our long-term national interest to ultimately have that separation” between ByteDance and American TikTok users, said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina).

Some prospective suitors have begun to formalize bids for the app. On Thursday, business magnate and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt said that his group, Project Liberty, formally delivered ByteDance an offer. He declined to disclose the monetary value, but one of his investment partners, “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, recently said they were willing to offer up to $20 billion to buy the platform, even without its prized algorithm. ByteDance has said TikTok is not for sale.

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“We’ve made sure that both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration are aware of our plans,” McCourt said in an interview Thursday.

McCourt said ByteDance had not yet engaged with the offer. “Obviously, a deal is not going to get close between now and January 19,” he said. But he argued that ByteDance could buy more time by showing President Joe Biden or Trump it is making progress toward a sale.

Some Republicans suggested Trump should help broker TikTok’s sale to an American company.

“It’d be great,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) said when asked about the prospect. After a federal appeals court upheld the law last month, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Michigan), the chair of the House select committee on China, issued a statement saying he was “optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok.”

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Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said Trump has many options for making good on his pledge to save the app. For example, Tobias said, he could attempt to give ByteDance an extension beyond Jan. 19 to find a suitor. He could let the ban take effect and try to broker a sale at that point. He could also simply direct his administration to ignore the law.

“Trump will take over and then he could do all manner of things,” Tobias said, adding: “They’ve made it pretty clear that they think that he can make it work one way or another.”

But given the measure’s overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, ignoring the law should be a nonstarter, Warner said. The measure passed 79-18 in the Senate and 360-58 in the House as part of a sprawling foreign aid package.

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“I don’t know how … the president-elect can simply refuse to enforce the law. This was not a close call in Congress,” Warner said.

Added Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), who also backed the law: “There is a very strong consensus in this country that laws need to be obeyed, particularly when they involve a threat to our national security.”

Some of the law’s detractors have sided with Trump in calling for it to be halted, including Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Massachusetts), who co-wrote a brief with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Rep. Ro Khanna (R-California) that expressed concern about its potential to chill speech.

Still, Markey signaled he is not holding his breath for Trump to rescue the app if the Supreme Court doesn’t overturn the law.

“Trump will do whatever he thinks is best for Trump in a given moment,” Markey said Friday. “Maybe that will be to save TikTok, maybe it will be to kill it. I’m not going to try to predict.”

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