In the very recent past, opposition to TikTok among U.S. officials was broad and largely bipartisan. During his presidency, for example, Donald Trump tried to ban the platform, and President Joe Biden embraced effectively the same policy, signing legislation in April that would force the platform’s China-based parent company to sell TikTok before a U.S.-imposed deadline or face a domestic ban.
On Capitol Hill, TikTok’s supporters were heavily outnumbered: The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act cleared the House on a 360-58 vote, and the 79-18 margin in the Senate was nearly as lopsided.
TikTok’s lawyers quickly got to work, launching a First Amendment challenge; but with just a couple of days remaining before the “divest or ban” policy is scheduled to take effect, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the platform’s arguments and upheld the law signed by Biden.
So, that’s that? Not exactly. NBC News reported:
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that implementation of the TikTok law ‘simply must fall to the next Administration,’ given that President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn in on Monday. And congressional leaders who championed the law are now shying away from calling for the ban to begin Sunday. Instead, they said they want to see a delay to allow TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, more time to sell the app to a U.S. buyer.
As messy as the politics surrounding this have become, one thing is clear: The existing law might’ve cleared constitutional muster, but it won’t be implemented, at least not on the designated deadline. The incoming Republican administration will pick up this hot potato next week, and it’s not at all clear what the new White House will do.
“My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation,” Trump wrote in an online message after the Supreme Court ruling. “Stay tuned!”
As the process moves forward, however, it’s important to appreciate the forces motivating the president-elect and his team. Republican Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, who’ll soon resign his seat to become the White House national security advisor, appeared on Fox News this week to tout TikTok as a “great platform” that Trump and his team have used “to get his America First message out.”
That wouldn’t have been especially notable were it not for the fact that Waltz, as recently as 2024, referred to TikTok “CCP spyware” and helped lead the charge to pass the “divest or ban” legislation. In 2022 and 2023, the Florida congressman not only condemned TikTok, he also publicly chastised Democrats who dared to use the platform.
A TikTok ban was necessary, Waltz said in 2020, “for the safety of all Americans.” But now that Trump has used TikTok “to get his America First message out,” the guy who was incensed by “CCP spyware” on Americans’ phones has decided that the platform is “great” after all. His soon-to-be boss has made a similar calculus. Trump was only too pleased to target TikTok during his first term, when he characterized it as a security threat. Now that he perceives the platform as advantageous to his political interests, the Republican has decided he loves it. Plenty of political players in both parties have struggled to remain consistent on this issue in recent months, but few have been quite so brazen as the incoming president and the man who’ll soon be his national security advisor.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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