President-elect Trump said Monday that he has a “warm spot” in his heart for TikTok as the popular social media app faces down a potential ban next month.
When asked if he would work to stop the ban from going into effect when he takes office, Trump said he will “take a look,” saying he attributes his win in part to TikTok.
“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok," the president-elect said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, claiming he "won youth by 34 points, and there are those that say that TikTok had something to do with it,”
He also pointed to his interviews with popular podcast hosts like Joe Rogan for his success, noting that some of the sit-downs on the campaign trail were recommended by his son, Barron Trump, who just began his freshman year of college at New York University.
TikTok could face a ban on U.S. networks and app stores as soon as Jan. 19, after Congress passed a law in April requiring the app’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest within 270 days or face a ban.
A federal appeals court upheld the law earlier this month, finding that it does not violate the First Amendment, as TikTok has argued. TikTok asked the appeals court to put the law on hold while it appeals to the Supreme Court, but the court rejected the request Friday.
“As we have previously stated, we plan on taking this case to the Supreme Court, which has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.
“The voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world will be silenced on January 19th, 2025 unless the TikTok ban is halted,” the spokesperson added.
It remains to be seen what Trump will do regarding TikTok. During the campaign, he opposed the divest-or-ban law and vowed to “save” the app. However, he has offered few details about his plans for TikTok in the wake of the election.
“I can’t totally hate it. It was very effective,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier this month. “But I will say this, if you do do that, something else is going to come along and take its place, and maybe that’s not fair.”
“I’m going to try and make it so that other companies don’t become an even bigger monopoly,” he added at the time.
