Before Donald Trump was for TikTok, he was against it, and many members of Congress agreed with him, concerned over the popular video app’s ties to the Chinese government. President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan bill into law, banning the app next year if parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell it by Jan. 19, 2025 — one day before Trump’s inauguration.
How Trump will approach TikTok when he gets into office is an open question. In 2020, Trump sanctioned the platform, barring any transactions between ByteDance and U.S. citizens (the ban ultimately went through legal hurdles and was later reversed by Biden). But then in September of this year, Trump posted a video on Truth Social: “For all of those that want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump. The other side’s closing it up, but I’m now a big star on TikTok,” he said. “We’re not doing anything with TikTok.”
Still, many Republican lawmakers believe he’ll leave the law requiring ByteDance’s divestment alone.
“I think TikTok is under the control of the Chinese Communist government and is a serious threat to the United States, and so I am glad Congress passed legislation forcing China to divest, and I think that legislation should be enforced,” Sen. Ted Cruz said.
“I think the law is the law,” Trump ally Sen. Rick Scott said. “I think he’s going to enforce the laws of this country. That’s the job. Anybody in the executive branch enforces the existing laws of the country.”
Trump, of course, would not be able to unilaterally repeal the law and allow TikTok to remain in the U.S. market as is. Plus, the divestment law passed with wide bipartisan support — so the odds of it being repealed through Congress don’t seem particularly high.
Trump could direct his attorney general, and the Department of Justice writ large, to not enforce the law. But “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Sen. John Hoeven said. “We passed a law. That’s still got to count for something in this country, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t believe that’s what the president of the United States is going to do,” Scott said.
The law is currently tied up in a legal fight on whether it can be upheld, and a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is expected this week. Both parties are likely to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
September’s preelection TikTok praise wasn’t the first time Trump indicated his position had changed. In March, while the House was teeing up the TikTok bill for its eventual successful vote, Trump also posted on Truth Social, “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business.”
“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,” he told CNBC in an interview days later. Without TikTok, “you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.” Postelection, Trump and his allies have touted how well his content performed on the app.
Despite Trump’s about-face, congressional Republicans broadly remain firm in their support of the law.
“I think many members of Congress are still committed to what we voted for. I’ve got great support for the vote that I took on it back in my district in Wisconsin,” Rep. Scott Fitzgerald said.
Others believe Trump could use his leverage to make ByteDance comply with the law: “I hope that he will use the CFIUS process to force a divestment,” Sen. Josh Hawley said.
“We’ll see what happens moving forward, but the objective, obviously, is for the law to be upheld,” Rep. Mike Lawler said.
Trump might be able to make use of a provision in the law giving the president authority to gauge whether ByteDance has taken enough steps to detangle itself from the Chinese government. He would be able to extend the divestment deadline by three months if he deems there to have been enough progress made so far.
A longtime detractor of the law is hopeful that Trump will do what he can to leave TikTok alone despite the ban.
“He has the ability to direct the Department of Justice to not go after them, and I think that he should. And I think there are many people in the incoming administration who do appreciate free speech in the First Amendment,” Sen. Rand Paul said.
And some folks need time to marinate. Rep. Dan Newhouse, a member of the House’s Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told NOTUS to “let me think about this and get back to you” when asked where Trump’s positioning leaves the law and what he’d do if Trump didn’t enforce it.
NOTUS caught up with him the next day. “I’ll just tell you the same thing. Let me think about it,” he said. “But you know, the law is the law. And I hope that if he has a different idea, certainly we can discuss that.”
Many members who are supportive of the law are hoping to speak to Trump about the issue — but he does, in fact, get a say.
“We have to worry about China’s mind influence in our country, especially with our young people, and so we need to be able to talk to the administration about why that bill was so important in the first place,” Sen. Pete Ricketts said.
TikTok “should be sold out of the CCP,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis said. “I suspect that President Trump would agree with us. But I’d love to talk to him about it.”
“I know as a mom, I know as someone who talks to friends who are raising kids in the social media environment, that doing nothing is not an option,” Sen. Katie Britt said. “So many of these things are truly bipartisan. We saw that in the Senate this year, and so we’re gonna keep working to try to find a solution. And obviously, President Trump has the most important seat in that table.”
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Nuha Dolby and Samuel Larreal are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.