Trump changes his tune — shock! — on TikTok ban
Former President Donald Trump is flip-flopping on banning TikTok, pulling the rug from under Republican congressional allies pushing legislation that would force the popular Chinese-owned app to be sold.
Trump on Monday reversed his previous strong support for a GOPbacked bill that gives the app’s Chinese owner a few months to sell it or be shut down.
“There’s a lot of good, and there’s a lot of bad” with TikTok, Trump said on CNBC. “There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”
Trump conceded that TikTok is a national security risk because the Chinese government could force the app’s owner ByteDance to hand over data from U.S. users.
But the presumptive Republican presidential nominee sought to change the subject to Facebook, which he claims would benefit from a ban of TikTok.
“Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Trump added.
Unlike TikTok, Facebook is an American company.
Trump had vociferously supported a proposal to force a sale of TikTok while he was president.
Congressional Republicans are now pushing the bill, which has won widespread bipartisan support. And President Biden last week came out in support of the measure.
It’s unclear what may have spurred Trump to change his tune on TikTok, although the app appears to be a hotbed of MAGA propaganda videos.
He admits recently meeting at his Mar-a-Lago estate with a Republican hedge fund owner who holds a massive stake in TikTok but denies discussing the app.
Trump’s pushback puts him on the opposite side of the debate of powerful congressional Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who has called the legislation a “critical national security bill.”
For now, Republicans are backing the ban with the House preparing to approve it using a procedure that will require a two-thirds vote.
“We must ensure the Chinese government cannot weaponize TikTok against American users and our government through data collection and propaganda,” Scalise said.
The FBI has warned that TikTok’s owner could share user data like browsing history, location and biometric identifiers with China’s authoritarian government.