President Mike Johnson on Sunday dispelled the notion that President-elect Donald Trump would bring back TikTok at the start of his second term without the company’s willingness to sell to a U.S.-based owner.
“I think we will enforce the law,” Johnson told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, a day after Trump told NBC News that he would “most likely” grant TikTok a 90-day extension operate in the United States
Johnson’s remarks come just hours after TikTok discontinued operations in the United Statescutting off user access to the application. At the same time, Apple, Google and Microsoft removed the app from app stores, preventing new users from downloading it.
A bipartisan bill passed last year and signed by President Joe Biden took effect Sunday, effectively banning TikTok from the United States if the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is not sold to an owner based in the United States.
In recent months, TikTok made a final push to the Supreme Court to escape the ban, but the court enforces the law Friday.
Trump, who supported banning TikTok during his first term, has now come out in favor of keeping the app in the United States. Before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, Trump’s team filed a brief. ask the court to put a pause on the lawsaying it would give his new administration time to find a solution.
The ban took effect the day before Trump was inaugurated for a second term.
On Saturday, the president-elect told NBC News that he “most likely“Give TikTok a 90-day extension to avoid a ban once he takes office, something the senators specifically disagreed with in their statement.
“I think that would certainly be an option that we would consider,” Trump said in a telephone interview. “The 90-day extension is something that will most likely be done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We need to look at it carefully. It’s a very important situation.”
Johnson noted that he believed that in recent months, Trump had referred to a plan to bring back the app via a sale, not its current version.
“When President Trump put out the (social) truth message and said, ‘Save TikTok,’ the way we read that is he’s going to try to force a real divestiture, a change of hands, ownership ” Johnson said on Sunday.
“It’s not the platform that Members of Congress are concerned about. It’s the Chinese Communist Party and its manipulation of algorithms – they have flooded the minds of American children with terrible messages glorifying violence and anti-Semitism and even suicide and eating disorders I mean, crazy stuff, and they’re mining the data of American citizens, it’s a very dangerous thing,” he added.
But later Sunday morning, Trump apparently pushed back on Johnson’s assertion, writing on TruthSocial that he would like the app to come back online in the United States as soon as possible, even if there is no deal, to give him time to conclude one. .
“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok remain in the dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the deadline before the law’s bans take effect, so we can reach a deal to protect our national security “, said the president. -elect wrote.
“The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” Trump added.
Shortly before Johnson’s comments, Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., also broke with Trump, celebrating the ban on the app that took effect Sunday.
“We commend Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft for following the law and halting their operations with ByteDance and TikTok, and we encourage other companies to do the same. After all, the law risks ruinous bankruptcy for any business that violates it,” Cotton and Ricketts wrote in a statement.
“Now that the law has entered into force, there is no legal basis for any ‘extension’ of its effective date. For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that meets the law’s qualified divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China,” they added.
Following the announcement later in the day that TikTok was working to restart in the United States, Cotton, the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, responded to TikTok’s statement by alluding to other ways the company could be punished, even if they avoided federal sanctions.
“Any company that hosts, distributes, maintains or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars in ruinous liability under the law, not only from the DOJ, but also under of securities law, shareholder suits and state AGs Think about it”, he. written the.
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, also blasted TikTok, writing on no one to blame but itself ByteDance had 270 days to sell TikTok, but they’ve been fighting it since day one because they refuse to give up Communist China’s hold on people’s data. Americans.
Current law does not grant the president the authority to grant a 90-day extension without ensuring that ByteDance is actually seeking to sell the app to a U.S.-based company.
“The President may grant a one-time extension of up to 90 days… if he certifies to Congress that: (A) a pathway to execute a qualified assignment has been identified with respect to such request,” the law. , adding that there must be “evidence of significant progress” towards a sale, which includes “relevant binding legal agreements to enable” a sale.
On Sunday, Johnson said he had “no confidence in ByteDance.”
“The law is very specific, and the only way to expand it is to have an actual agreement,” Johnson added. “I think President Trump is probably intrigued by all of this and likes to make deals, as you know. So we’re hopeful that this can happen and that the 270 million Americans who enjoy the platform can enjoy it, but enjoy it.” securely and that their data is not exploited by the enemy of our nation.