Trump says he’ll ‘be making the decision’ on TikTok after supreme court upholds ban law – report
Donald Trump told CNN that he will decide what to do with TikTok once he takes office, after the supreme court upheld legislation that will ban it on Sunday unless its Chinese owner sells its US operations.
“It ultimately goes up to me, so you’re going to see what I’m going to do,” Trump said in an interview with the network. Asked if he would try to reverse the ban, should it go into effect, Trump said: “Congress has given me the decision, so I’ll be making the decision.”
Key events
Trump says ‘everyone must respect’ supreme court decision on TikTok
Donald Trump elaborated on his thoughts on TikTok in a post on Truth Social, writing:
The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!
Johana Bhuiyan
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the supreme court decision in the TikTok case “incredibly disappointing” and said it was based on “fear-mongering and speculation”.
“By refusing to block this ban, the supreme court is giving the executive branch unprecedented power to silence speech it doesn’t like, increasing the danger that sweeping invocations of ‘national security’ will trump our constitutional rights,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project.
In its opinion, the court wrote that the challenged lower court decision to ban TikTok was “content-neutral” because it imposes “TikTok-specific prohibitions due to a foreign adversary’s control over the platform and make divestiture a prerequisite for the platform’s continued operation in the United States. They do not target particular speech based upon its content.”
The opinion goes on to say that even if China has not yet used its connection to TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to access the vast troves of data that TikTok collects on its US users, it is a “reasonable inferenc[e] based on substantial evidence” that they might do so in the future”.
The ACLU called on the next administration to “fix or repeal this flawed legislation”.
“Taking away Americans’ free speech rights does not make us safer; it endangers our democracy,” said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at ACLU.
White House says TikTok ban decision will be left to Trump
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the question of implementing a ban on TikTok will be left to Donald Trump, Reuters reports.
Here’s the press secretary’s full statement:
The administration, like the rest of the country, has awaited the decision just made by the US supreme court on the TikTok matter. President Biden’s position on TikTok has been clear for months, including since Congress sent a bill in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion to the President’s desk: TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law. Given the sheer fact of timing, this administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next administration, which takes office on Monday.
Trump says he’ll ‘be making the decision’ on TikTok after supreme court upholds ban law – report
Donald Trump told CNN that he will decide what to do with TikTok once he takes office, after the supreme court upheld legislation that will ban it on Sunday unless its Chinese owner sells its US operations.
“It ultimately goes up to me, so you’re going to see what I’m going to do,” Trump said in an interview with the network. Asked if he would try to reverse the ban, should it go into effect, Trump said: “Congress has given me the decision, so I’ll be making the decision.”
In response to arguments from TikTok and its supporters that the sale-or-ban law violates the first amendment, the supreme court noted:
It is not clear that the Act itself directly regulates protected expressive activity, or conduct with an expressive component. Indeed, the Act does not regulate the creator petitioners at all …
Petitioners, for their part, have not identified any case in which this Court has treated a regulation of corporate control as a direct regulation of expressive activity or semi-expressive conduct … We hesitate to break that new ground in this unique case.
Blake Montgomery
Justice Neil Gorsuch expressed reservations about the TikTok sale-or-ban bill.
Though the conservative justice voted to uphold the law, he did not express total certainty in it.
“Whether this law will succeed in achieving its ends, I do not know. A determined foreign adversary may just seek to replace one lost surveillance application with another,” he wrote in his concurring opinion.
“But the question we face today is not the law’s wisdom, only its constitutionality. Given just a handful of days after oral argument to issue an opinion, I cannot profess the kind of certainty I would like to have about the arguments and record before us.”
Supreme court cites national security concerns, TikTok’s relationship with ‘foreign adversary’ in decision
TikTok’s attorneys had argued that the first amendment should have protected the social media app from Congress’s legislation that will impose a ban unless its Chinese owner divests.
But the supreme court disagreed, writing that Congress has legitimate concerns with TikTok, and the power to deal with them:
There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ first amendment rights.
The court issued an unsigned “per curiam” decision in the TikTok case, meaning the nine justices were unanimous in their ruling.
However, two justices wrote concurring opinions in which they shared their own thoughts: the liberal Sonia Sotomayor, who noted she did not join in part of the majority opinion, and the conservative Neil Gorsuch, who concurred in the judgment, but shared some thoughts on the relatively short time the justices had to hear and decide the case.
Supreme court upholds TikTok sale-or-ban law
The supreme court has allowed to go into effect a law that will force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell its US business by Sunday, or face a ban.
With TikTok on the ropes, American users are flocking to RedNote, another Chinese social media app, to get their fix of the human connection and creativity we all crave. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Alaina Demopoulos:
Cute cats. Fit checks. Travel vlogs. Luigi Mangione latte art. Americans who downloaded RedNote saw it all this week, as they fled to the Chinese social media app in advance of an imminent (or not ) TikTok ban.
English language content has flooded RedNote, whose default language is Mandarin, with Americans posting introductions to themselves and kicking off cross-cultural discussions: How much do you pay for groceries? What Chinese slang do I need to know? Do you have any opinions about the state of Ohio?
Qian Huang, a professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who studies Asian youth and digital culture, said that she originally downloaded RedNote to keep up with Chinese trends. “But this week, I woke up and my feed was not the usual feed any more,” Huang said. “It was all English content. That was a bit of a weird feeling for me.”
Despite concerns about data privacy, the app shot to No 1 in US app stores on Tuesday, with more than half a million downloads from new users, after a supreme court hearing on TikTok’s future last week. The tech reporter Ryan Broderick noted on his Garbage Day newsletter that Black TikTok beauty influencers had seen RedNote’s potential for makeup tutorials and trend-spotting before the hearing.
Xi and Trump talk TikTok in call, president-elect says
Donald Trump says he has spoken to China’s president, Xi Jinping, about a range of topics, including TikTok.
Writing on Truth Social, the president-elect said:
I just spoke to Chairman Xi Jinping of China. The call was a very good one for both China and the U.S.A. It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately. We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!
Trump signals support for TikTok as ban decision looms
If the supreme court allows the TikTok sell-or-ban law to go into effect, it will be up to Donald Trump to enforce it, and the incoming president has said he wants to keep the popular social media app available.
NBC News reports that Joe Biden’s administration does not plan to enforce the ban in what would be the final hours of its administration, assuming TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance does not find an American buyer. In Congress, forcing the sale of TikTok was a bipartisan cause, but Trump has warmed to the app, and even invited its CEO to sit on the dais at Monday’s inauguration.
Here are the steps he could take to allow it to remain available, even if ByteDance does not sell:
Supreme court to release opinions, with challenge to TikTok ban awaiting decision
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The supreme court has announced it will release opinions at 10am ET today, as a challenge to a law that will ban TikTok on Sunday unless its China-based owner sells its US business awaits the justices’ decision. As usual, the court did not say how many opinions will be released or on which cases, and thus we will just have to wait an hour or so to find out. Should they decide the TikTok case, we do have some hints on how the justices may rule – in oral arguments last week, they seemed inclined to uphold the law.
Meanwhile, we are in the final days of Joe Biden’s administration, and the Democratic president is making some last-minute moves ahead of Donald Trump’s arrival on Monday. This morning, he announced clemency for about 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, as well as 15 more prescription drugs that Medicare will negotiate lower prices for. Biden still could have more executive actions planned before he leaves office, including preemptive pardons to Trump’s enemies. We’ll let you know if he announces anything else today.
Here’s what else is going on:
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If the TikTok ban is allowed to stand, the Biden administration does not plan to enforce it, NBC News reports.
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Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who Trump picked for homeland security chief, has her Senate confirmation hearing at 9am today.
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Israel’s cabinet just approved the Gaza ceasefire deal. Follow our live blog for more on this breaking story.