Why Trump may try to undo the TikTok ban

TikTok went offline for hours in the U.S. this weekend as a federal law that banned the popular social media app unless it was sold by its China-based parent company, ByteDance, went into effect Sunday. The move came days after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law, ruling that free speech rights must yield to concerns that Chinese control of the platform creates a national security risk.

"I think it’s difficult to overstate how many millions of Americans use TikTok every day not just for entertainment, for news, for information consumption. And so taking that away is politically unpopular," McKay Coppins of The Atlantic told Washington Week moderator Jeffrey Goldberg on Friday.

"Trump understands that taking something popular away from voters is bad, and if he can be seen as the one who saved it, he could be rewarded," Coppins said.

In a phone interview Saturday with NBC News, President-elect Donald Trump said that he would "most likely" give TikTok a 90-day extension on the current ban once he takes office, though it’s unclear if he has the legal ability to do so.

By Sunday afternoon, TikTok said it was restoring access to the app for American users after Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he "will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect."

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Author: Washington Week PBS
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News post in at: January 20, 2025, 6:01 am.

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