Trump Will Try To Stop TikTok Ban, But How?

Donald Trump made a dramatic shift in his attitude toward TikTok in March, suddenly coming to the social media’s defense after years of saying the app was a threat to the United States. Now that Trump is about to take power again on Jan. 20, everyone expects that the president will try to reverse the bipartisan legislation passed in April, which will close the operating system if it is not sold to an American company. But the question remains: How will Trump reverse what has already been started?

Trump’s flip-flop on TikTok has been 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 US company. company or face a ban. And he didn’t say in words how much he hates this app.

“This mobile app may be used for anti-virus campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread twisted conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus,” Trump’s statement read in part.

That executive order was tied up in court before it took effect and the Joe Biden administration rescinded the order after taking office in 2021. The party was somehow manipulating the system to distract the American people. The intel community didn’t present any concrete evidence that China was harming the US in any way, but members of Congress who used to attend closed-door meetings swore it was true as well.

And with or without evidence that the Chinese government was manipulating anything in US discourse, it seemed logical that any program controlled by a geopolitical enemy could one day be used to act against US interests in some way. Which brings us to Trump’s complete 180. Writing on his social network Truth Social back in March 2024, not long after Super Tuesday, Trump made his case that, in fact, TikTok should not be banned.

“If you remove TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, which cheated in the last election, to do better. They are the real Enemy of the People!” Trump wrote.

We don’t know for sure why Trump changed his mind on TikTok, but there is widespread speculation that billionaire and Republican donor Jeff Yass, who invested heavily in ByteDance, may have had something to do with it. Yass and Trump had some conversations shortly before the former president announced his resignation, according to Politico.

In April 2024, legislation that would have forced the removal of TikTok by ByteDance or face a ban on US soil passed the House and the Senate and was signed into law by President Biden. And it seemed that this would eventually happen, even if the ban would be dragged through the courts for years. Trump even turned the TikTok ban into an appeal to young voters, declaring in a Public Truth video in May, “Young people, remember… Crooked Joe Biden is the one who wants to take away your TikTok. So if you are young and wise vote for Donald Trump. ” But Trump’s victory in the presidential election last week puts a new twist on the whole story.

The Washington Post published a new report on Tuesday that said Trump would try to stop the TikTok ban, citing “people familiar with his views on the matter,” which is not surprising. But it seems that he has only two options to make that happen: Either pass a new law to kill this old bill, or tell his new Attorney General, (whoever he is), to simply ignore the ban and allow TikTok to operate without interference.

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 that they are not big hypocrites who slavishly listen to whatever Trump says. It’s possible, but it’s still weird. The second option, to tell the new AG to simply ignore the ban, would be to admit that the laws are false and are only maintained or ignored to protect powerful interests. That’s an accurate assessment of the world in 2024, but it’s also surprising to admit to a nation that is supposedly “lawful”.

Technically, the backlog requires ByteDance to be up and running before Jan. 19, 2025, the day before Trump’s inauguration. But continued litigation is likely to allow the company to be reinstated at least until Trump acts.

Interestingly, the Washington Post article notes that ByteDance “realized months ago that Trump’s victory was their best chance to take control of TikTok,” citing an anonymous source “with knowledge of the company’s internal discussions.” That leaves the door open for other negative incentives given that TikTok loosened its own rules against extremism to allow more Trump content on the platform this year, according to sources.

Which path will Trump choose, get a new law or tell his AG to ignore the law? Neither knows. But there are more weird options ahead, as Trump assembles his incoming administration and keeps it full of weird sycophants. On Tuesday we learned that Trump plans to sign an executive order that will allow him to easily remove generals he doesn’t like, according to the Wall Street Journal. And given the fact that Trump has said he could use the military to go after political enemies, that seems like a bad sign.

Wait there folks. It will be a very difficult journey ahead.