Live updates on the TikTok ban: Trump posts, “SAVE TIKTOK,” as the app shuts down as the US ban begins.
Minutes before a countrywide ban went into force, TikTok abruptly closed its doors to U.S. users on Saturday. However, President-elect Donald Trump has hinted that he will permit TikTok to reopen when he takes office on Monday by giving China-based company ByteDance more time to sell the app.
The idea that President-elect Donald Trump will resurrect TikTok early in his second term without the company’s readiness to sell to a U.S.-based owner was refuted by Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday.
Johnson stated on Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that “I think we will enforce the law,” one day after Trump stated that he would “most likely” grant TikTok a 90-day extension to continue operating in the United States.
Hours after TikTok suspended operations in the United States, denying users access to the app, Johnson made these comments. The app was taken down from app stores by Apple, Google, and Microsoft at the same moment, making it impossible for new users to download it.
If the Chinese business ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, doesn’t sell the app to a U.S.-based owner, a bipartisan bill signed by President Joe Biden last year essentially bans the service from the U.S. on Sunday.
TikTok tried desperately to get the Supreme Court to lift the ban in the final months, but the court upheld the law on Friday.
Trump, who advocated TikTok’s prohibition in his first term, has now come out in favor of the app’s continued use in the United States. In order to allow his new administration time to come up with a solution, Trump’s team submitted a brief to the Supreme Court requesting that the statute be put on hold until the court heard oral arguments in the case.
The day before Trump was sworn in for a second term, the ban became operative.
The senators particularly disagreed with the president-elect’s Saturday comments to NBC News, which said he would “most likely” grant TikTok a 90-day extension to avoid a ban after he enters office.
According to Trump, “I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at,” during a phone interview. Since it is suitable, the 90-day extension is something that will probably be implemented. It’s fitting, you know. We must examine it closely. It’s a huge situation.
According to Johnson, Trump has been hinting at a plan in recent months to sell the app and bring it back, not in its current form.
“When President Trump issued the Truth [Social] post and said, ‘Save Tiktok,’ the way we read that is that he’s going to try to force along a true divestiture, changing of hands, the ownership,” Johnson said on Sunday.
Members of Congress are not worried about the platform. The Chinese Communist Party has been inundating American children’s minds with awful messages that promote violence, anti-Semitism, suicide, and eating disorders through its manipulation of the algorithms. They’re mining the data of Americans, and I’m talking about strange things. It’s quite risky,” he continued.
Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., also broke with Trump just before Johnson’s remarks, rejoicing in the app’s ban that took effect on Sunday.
We urge other businesses to obey the law and stop their dealings with ByteDance and TikTok, and we applaud Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft for doing so. After all, breaking the law puts any corporation at risk of catastrophic bankruptcy,” Cotton and Ricketts stated in a statement.
There is no legal justification for any sort of “extension” of the law’s effective date now that it has gone into force. ByteDance must consent to a transaction that satisfies the qualified-divestiture requirements of the law by cutting off all connections between TikTok and Communist China in order for the app to reappear online in the future, they continued.
Without assurance that ByteDance is genuinely looking to sell the software to a U.S.-based company, the president is not authorized by the current law to provide a 90-day extension.
“The President may grant a one-time extension of not more than 90 days… if the President certifies to Congress that— (A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application,” the law states. It also stipulates that “evidence of significant progress” towards a sale, including “the relevant binding legal agreements to enable” a sale, must be present.
Johnson stated on Sunday that he lacks “any confidence in ByteDance.”
“The law is very precise, and the only way to extend that is if there is an actual deal in the works,” said Johnson. “As you are aware, President Trump enjoys striking deals, so I believe he is intrigued by all of this. We therefore have a great deal of hope that this will be possible and that the 270 million Americans who use the platform will be able to do so safely without having their data harvested by our country’s adversary.”
