Former president Donald Trump is digging in against a potential ban of TikTok moving through Congress \u2014 and seeking to blame President Biden for it \u2014 even though Trump sought to outlaw the social media application when he was in the White House.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok,\u201d Trump said Monday in a post on his Truth Social platform, accusing Biden of waiting to help Facebook become more powerful and possibly meddle in elections to hurt Republicans.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s post came two days after the House, as part of a broad foreign aid package, passed legislation that would force TikTok\u2019s China-based parent company to sell the application within about a year or face a national ban. Biden endorsed the package and last month said he would sign an earlier version of the TikTok legislation that the House passed.<\/p>\n
In 2020, Trump issued an executive order to ban TikTok if its parent company did not sell it within 45 days. The order was later blocked in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs far as TikTok is concerned, we\u2019re banning them from the United States,\u201d Trump said in July 2020.<\/p>\n
But Trump\u2019s public stance on the social media app swung in the other direction in recent months, with the former president arguing in March that a TikTok ban would only empower Facebook, which he has called \u201can enemy of the people.\u201d Trump\u2019s post on Monday appeared to be the first time he explicitly referenced Biden while railing against proposals to force a TikTok sale.<\/p>\n
Asked for comment on Trump\u2019s post, Biden\u2019s reelection campaign referred to the White House, which denied it was working to shut down TikTok.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been clear: we do not want to ban apps like TikTok,\u201d White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson said in a statement. \u201cWhat we want \u2014 and what the legislation we support would do \u2014 is ensure that TikTok becomes owned by an American company so that our and our children\u2019s sensitive personal data stays here instead of going to China and so that Americans\u2019 understandings and views can\u2019t be manipulated by algorithms potentially controlled by the [People\u2019s Republic of China].\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump accused Biden of wanting to shut down TikTok to \u201chelp his friends over at Facebook\u201d become more powerful and \u201cbe able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the Republican Party.\u201d Under the bill passed on a 360-58 vote by the House Saturday, TikTok\u2019s owner would have up to 360 days to divest, meaning any ban is not likely to happen until after Election Day.<\/p>\n
The chamber in March passed an earlier version of the bill trying to force a TikTok sale on a shorter timeline, but it has languished in the Senate. The latest proposal\u2019s attachment to the foreign aid package could boost its chances in the upper chamber.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s reversal on TikTok raised questions about his relationship with Jeff Yass, a Republican megadonor from Pennsylvania who is also a TikTok investor. Trump, who is working to cultivate more heavyweight GOP donors as Biden builds a large fundraising advantage, met earlier this year with Yass but said afterward that they did not discuss TikTok.<\/p>\n
A former top aide in Trump\u2019s White House, Kellyanne Conway, is advocating for TikTok in Congress and has spoken to Trump about the importance of defending the application, The Washington Post reported last month. Conway is being paid by the Club for Growth, the conservative group that counts Yass as one of its biggest donors.<\/p>\n
Trump has called TikTok a national security threat but also touted its popularity, saying in a March interview with CNBC that there is \u201ca lot of good and there\u2019s a lot of bad with TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you know, I was at a point where I could have gotten it done if I wanted to,\u201d Trump said, suggesting he ultimately wanted to leave the matter to Congress. \u201cI sort of said, \u2018You guys decide, you make that decision,\u2019 because it\u2019s a tough decision to make. Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cristiano Lima-Strong contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Former president Donald Trump is digging in against a potential ban of TikTok moving through Congress \u2014 and seeking to blame President Biden for it \u2014 even though Trump sought to outlaw the social media application when he was in the White House. \u201cJust so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}