President-elect Donald Trump urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to pause implementation of a law that would ban TikTok in the United States effective Jan. 19. The law will ban the app unless it’s sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Trump wants to delay the ban at least until he assumes office on Jan. 20, also Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so he can use his alleged “consummate dealmaking expertise” to address ongoing national security concerns with the Chinese platform.
“President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute,” D. John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer and pick for U.S. solicitor general, wrote in a 25-page filing. “Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, thus permitting President Trump’s incoming Administration the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case.”
“In light of these interests—including, most importantly, his overarching responsibility for the United States’ national security and foreign policy—President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture, and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office,” Sauer added.
Notably, Trump’s lawyers attempted to play up his influence on social media, claiming that Trump is “one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history.”
Trump is powerful, indeed, but influential is more of a head-scratcher. If anything, Trump used social media as a bully pulpit and to block users who dared to disagree with him.
Friday’s filing comes ahead of the Jan. 10 oral arguments on whether the law violates the First Amendment by unlawfully restricting speech. The bill garnered bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Joe Biden in April, though it’s been challenged by TikTok.
Earlier this month, a panel of federal judges unanimously upheld the law, leading TikTok to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
Though Sauer told the high court that Trump has no position on the legal arguments being made for or against the law, the brief referred to the First Amendment implications as “sweeping and troubling.” Trump’s lawyer also warned about setting a “dangerous global precedent” toward government censorship.
It’s not immediately clear why Trump, who attempted to ban the app in 2020, is suddenly desperate to save it after his initial effort failed in the courts. When running for his second term, Trump vowed to “save TikTok” but notably left out specifics on how he’d do that. TikTok boasts more than 170 million users in the United States.
In what is likely just a coincidence, Trump’s change of heart comes as TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew becomes the latest tech billionaire to kiss the ring. CBS News reported that he met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate earlier this month.
“We’ll take a look at TikTok. You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points,” Trump said at a December news conference when asked about the ban. “And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that.”
Of course, Trump’s former statement is not true. While the president-elect did make inroads with young voters compared to past Republican presidential candidates, exit polls show that he still lost voters between the ages of 18 and 29 to Vice President Kamala Harris.
It’s somewhat shocking, then, that Trump’s lawyers are making the false argument that the man who can’t even successfully negotiate deals with Congress somehow possesses the ability to hammer out a resolution to save TikTok.
Trump is one of the worst presidential dealmakers in modern history, so why should he be trusted now?
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