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Trump says he has a ‘warm spot’ for TikTok and may look into stopping a ban, but he doesn’t take office until the day after the ban is enacted.
On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump said he has a “warm spot” in his heart for TikTok, suggesting an openness to stopping a potential ban of the Chinese-owned social media app set to take place on January 19. When pressed further about whether he would take action to prevent a ban, Trump said he would “take a look.”
“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” said Trump during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He noted he won the youth vote “by 34 points,” and “there are those that say that TikTok had something to do with it.”
“I can’t totally hate it. It was very effective,” Trump said of TikTok on NBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier this month. “But I will say this, if you do [ban TikTok], something else is going to come along and take its place and maybe that’s not fair.”
Notably, Trump repeatedly dodged TikTok-related questions while on the campaign trail. He initially showed interest in banning the platform during his first presidential term, but has since changed his tune — a TikTok ban might benefit rival social media company Meta, with whom Trump holds a grudge after his accounts were suspended. He has said he opposed the idea that ByteDance should be made to divest its holdings to continue operating in the U.S. and that he would “save” it, but has not offered a plan to do so.
TikTok faces a ban in the United States and on app stores as early as January 19, after the government opposed the company’s attempts to appeal the decision earlier this month. Congress passed a law back in April requiring the platform’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest its holdings within 270 days or face a ban.
The U.S. government has stated TikTok poses a national security risk due to its Beijing-based ownership. That has sparked fears that the CCP could require TikTok to hand over U.S. user data or manipulate content at the Chinese government’s behest.
