More than a year after Congress passed a law to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or else be banned from U.S. markets, the app is still up and running — and the White House is actively promoting it.
The White House’s official TikTok account, created just over two weeks ago, has posted more than 60 times. The posts range from compilations of Trump’s media clips to highly produced videos hosted by Karoline Leavitt summarizing the White House’s messaging, as well as memes attacking liberals for not supporting Trump and other chronically online, meme-formatted videos promoting the administration’s agenda on immigration.
Lawmakers who passed the ban aren’t thrilled that President Donald Trump has defied it, and they aren’t particularly pleased he’s now using the app to communicate with Americans through a White House account.
“TikTok should be banned,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Florida Republican, told NOTUS on Thursday. “It was banned, actually. So no, I’m not really happy about it.”
“I’m not a legal expert,” he added, “but the will of Congress is to either have them divest from Chinese control or to shut it down.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded in a statement that the administration is committed to communicating with “as many audiences and platforms as possible.”
“President Trump’s message dominated TikTok during his presidential campaign, and we’re excited to build upon those successes and communicate in a way no other administration has before,” she said.
Trump has repeatedly praised TikTok, saying it was partly why he won the 2024 election. This year, he has delayed enforcement of the law by moving a deadline for divestment of the app three times. A new deadline for enforcement is set for later this month, but the White House’s account doesn’t signal Trump is ready to implement it.
Most lawmakers say they continue to view the app as a threat to American security, and the Supreme Court has upheld the law. Still, leading Republicans seem reluctant to raise hell about the president ignoring the will of Congress.
“I believe they’re still working on a sale of TikTok,” Rep. John Moolenaar, who chairs the House select committee on competition with the Chinese government, said when asked Thursday about the official White House TikTok account. “My hope is that it happens sooner rather than later. We’re going to continue to advocate for that.”
Moolenaar sidestepped a follow-up question about how the White House’s TikTok account may interfere with a ban on government employees using the app on their work devices.
“Anyways, I’ve got to go,” he responded before walking to the House floor.
Rep. Young Kim, a California Republican and another member of the select committee, tried to strike a balance. She is “not against anyone using a TikTok account or having a TikTok account, whether it’s a government official or individual,” she told NOTUS on Thursday.
But, she said, “We just don’t want this to be owned by a Chinese company that responds to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Technology policy experts argue that Trump’s embrace of the app weakens the case against it.
“There’s this ongoing debate about national security versus speech when it relates to TikTok,” Jennifer Huddleston, a technology policy expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, said in an interview. “Does the fact that we are seeing a comfort in the administration itself using TikTok reinvigorate the questions of how strong is the national security case?”
Democrats are torn on the question. Some, like Rep. Ro Khanna of California, have called for repealing the ban.
“The app remains at risk of shutdown and millions of Americans could lose their livelihoods,” he told NOTUS in a statement. “Congress should pass my bill with Senator Rand Paul to repeal the TikTok ban and if Trump cares about TikTok, he should sign it.”
But Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the select committee on competition, isn’t persuaded by arguments about influencers’ livelihoods.
“The president needs to implement the law,” Krishnamoorthi said Thursday. “He needs to force the sale of TikTok America by ByteDance.”
Krishnamoorthi bemoaned how Trump’s tariffs reportedly prompted Chinese officials to turn away from a divestment deal earlier this year.
“People talk to me about it all the time,” he added of how his Republican colleagues feel about the president’s refusal to implement the law. “They’re embarrassed.”
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This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and San José Spotlight.