UPDATE (Jan. 20, 2025, 9:00 p.m. ET): President Donald Trump officially signed an executive order on Monday delaying the implementation of the TikTok ban for 75 days while his administration decides on next steps.
On Sunday morning, many Americans woke up to President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement via Truth Social that upon taking office, he would revive TikTok through an executive order approving a new ownership arrangement. In typically convoluted language, Trump declared his “current thought” was that the U.S. government would own 50% of TikTok in a “joint venture” in which the other half would be held either by the existing Chinese owner or some undisclosed, likely as yet undiscovered, purchaser.
But Americans did not even have to wait until Trump took the oath to resume their doomscrolling and meme-making. By midday Sunday, TikTok was again available to U.S. users on the apparent basis of Trump’s promises. And suddenly, Trump became the unlikely hero of panicked teens and content creators not traditionally enamored with anything MAGA-related.
Suddenly, Trump became the unlikely hero of panicked teens and content creators not traditionally enamored with anything MAGA-related.
But put aside the substance of his anticipated executive order, which, by his own admission, was designed to broaden the audience for his inauguration. (His initial tweet notably said nothing about salvaging American small businesses reliant on TikTok or the projected impact on increasingly lonely Gen Z and/or even younger Americans.) Put aside the fact that Trump’s insult of choice is often “radical communist,” even though a state-owned social media platform is among the most socialist ideas I have seen even floated in American government.
What’s most dangerous about the anticipated TikTok executive order has nothing to do with its subject or the policy.
Simply stated, it’s one thing to quietly underenforce or even avoid enforcing an existing federal law. But it’s dangerously imperialist, on the other hand, to issue an executive order that essentially states a validly enacted statute means nothing. By deciding that the TikTok problem can be solved through 50% direct government ownership combined with other acceptable purchasers (or even the existing owners) — a solution never contemplated in the law — Trump is declaring laws he does not like can be altered, if not excised, by his simple fiat months, if not years, after their enactment.
Put another way, if Trump can erase the text of the TikTok ban, what’s to stop him from doing that to far more consequential laws?
Nothing, and that’s for two reasons.
First, it’s not clear who would have standing to challenge his executive order in court. After all, who can say they have suffered an actual, concrete injury as a result of Trump flouting the law? Certainly not TikTok. And even if members of Congress could argue that the executive order is an incursion on their own constitutional powers, I doubt either chamber of the GOP-led 119th Congress want to incur the wrath of the MAGA king and his loyal subjects within the first days of Trump 2.0.
Even the bill’s most vociferous defender (and the new chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence), Sen. Tom Cotton, doesn’t have the appetite for that losing battle. Instead, he attempted to scare companies that host or distribute TikTok — like American tech giants Apple, Google and Oracle — with the specter of securities law, shareholder lawsuits and litigation by state attorneys general.
But second and more importantly, our nation’s ultimate arbiter of what is and is not legal is the same Supreme Court that all but told Trump, through its presidential immunity decision: “Go ahead. Act ‘boldly and fearlessly’ — and there can’t be consequences.” If the worst thing that could happen to a president for ignoring federal law while carrying out arguably “official duties” — criminal prosecution — is off the table, what would ever stop Trump from issuing executive orders that usurp congressional authority again and again and again?
Not the GOP leadership in either House.
Not his attorney general.
Not his Supreme Court.
No one. And that’s what will make this Trump presidency far different from the last one.