Donald Trump made a surprise reversal in his attitude toward TikTok back in March, suddenly coming out to defend the social media platform after years of saying the app was a threat to the United States. Now that Trump is set to retake power on Jan. 20, everyone expects the president will try to undo the bipartisan legislation that passed in April, which will ban the app if it’s not sold to an American company. But the question remains: How will Trump undo what’s already been set in motion?
Trump’s flip-flop on TikTok has been pretty extraordinary, even by the topsy-turvy standards of 2024. The former president signed an executive order in the summer of 2020 to force TikTok’s parent company in China, ByteDance, to sell to a U.S.-based company or face a ban. And he didn’t mince words about how much he hated the app.
“This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus,” Trump’s executive order read in part.
That executive order got tied up in the courts before it could be implemented and Joe Biden’s administration rescinded the order after he took office in 2021. But foreign policy hawks in Congress and the U.S. intelligence community took up the cause again, insisting that the Chinese Communist Party was somehow manipulating the app to brainwash Americans. The intel community didn’t present any tangible evidence that China was harming the U.S. in any way, but members of Congress who were privy to closed-door meetings swore it was true as well.
And with or without evidence that the Chinese government was manipulating anything in U.S. discourse, it seemed plausible that any app controlled by a geopolitical adversary might be used one day to act against U.S. interests in some way. Which brings us to Trump’s complete 180. Writing on his social media platform Truth Social back in March 2024, not long after Super Tuesday, Trump made his case that, actually, TikTok shouldn’t be banned.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!” Trump wrote.
We still don’t know for certain why Trump changed his mind on TikTok, but there’s widespread speculation that billionaire and Republican donor Jeff Yass, who has a very large investment in ByteDance, might have something to do with it. Yass and Trump had some sort of conversation just before the former president announced his reversal, according to Politico.
By April 2024, the law that would force divestment of TikTok by ByteDance or face a ban on U.S. soil passed both the House and Senate and was signed into law by President Biden. And it really seemed like this was going to happen eventually, even if the ban would get drawn out in litigation for years. Trump even turned the TikTok ban into an appeal to young voters, declaring in a Truth Social video back in May, “Young people, remember… Crooked Joe Biden is the one that wants to take your TikTok away from you. So if you’re young and you’re smart vote for Donald Trump.” But Trump’s win in the presidential election last week puts a new spin on the whole story.
The Washington Post published a new report Tuesday that says Trump will try to halt the TikTok ban, citing “people familiar with his views on the matter,” which isn’t a surprise. But it appears he only has two options to make that happen: Either get new legislation passed to kill this old bill, or tell his new Attorney General, (whoever that may be), to just ignore the ban and allow TikTok to operate unimpeded.
Either option is weird. If Trump tries to get Congress to pass new legislation, the same people who voted for the ban will need to find a way to convince the public they’re not massive hypocrites who are slavishly obedient to whatever Trump says. It’s possible, but still weird. The second option, telling the new AG to just ignore the ban, would be an admission that laws are fake and only upheld or ignored in the defense of powerful interests. That’s an accurate assessment of the world in 2024, but it’s also weird to admit in a nation that supposedly has “the rule of law.”
Technically, the schedule for divestment requires ByteDance to act by Jan. 19, 2025, the day before Trump is inaugurated. But continued litigation is likely to allow a reprieve for the company at least until Trump can act.
Curiously, the Washington Post article notes that ByteDance “recognized months ago that a Trump victory was its best chance to retain control of TikTok,” citing an anonymous source who’s “familiar with the firm’s internal discussions.” That leaves open the door for some bad incentives when you remember that TikTok loosened its own rules against extremism to allow more Trump content on the platform this year, according to The Information.
Which option will Trump choose, getting a new law passed or telling his AG to ignore the law? Nobody knows. But there are a lot of weird choices ahead, as Trump assembles his incoming administration and stocks it full of bizarre sycophants. On Tuesday we learned that Trump plans to sign an executive order that would allow him to easily get rid of generals he didn’t like, according to the Wall Street Journal. And given the fact that Trump has previously said he could use the military to go after political enemies, that seems like a bad sign.
Hang in there, folks. It’s going to be a very bumpy ride ahead.
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