Trump could use executive order to halt TikTok ban, WaPo reports

President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly considering using executive action to stop TikTok’s impending ban.

As previously reported, last year President Joe Biden signed a law calling for Tiktok’s owner, the Chinese company ByteDance, to either sell the app to Americans by Jan. 19th or be banned in the U.S.

With just a few days remaining until TikTok is banned, the only hope TikTokers now have is with President-elect Trump, who’s reportedly considering using an executive order to intervene.

The order, if pursued, “would suspend enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale law for 60 to 90 days, buying the administration time to negotiate a sale or alternative solution,” according to The Washington Post.

“Trump, one [source] said, is eager to be seen as ‘making a deal’ and signing an executive order soon after the deadline’s passing — just one day before his inauguration — would give the proceedings a cinematic flourish,” the Post notes.

Whether the strategy has a chance in hell of working remains to be seen. The big problem is that the law Biden signed last year passed Congress with massive bipartisan support.

“[Executive orders] are not magical documents,” former DOJ national security adviser Alan Rozenshtein told the Post. “TikTok will still be banned, and it will still be illegal for Apple and Google to do business with them. But it will make the president’s intention not to enforce the law that much more official.”

There are other alternatives as well. After all, Trump could just convince Congress to repeal the law, though this obviously would be no easy feat to accomplish. Or he could just direct incoming Attorney General Pam Bondi to not enforce the law.

In fact, during Bondi’s confirmation hearing this week, she refused to explicitly commit to enforcing the law:

“Can you commit that you will enforce that law promptly and effectively?” Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked her during the hearing. “And I ask this question because President Trump’s pick for your solicitor general in the Department of Justice went to the United States Supreme Court arguing that the ban should be delayed.”

“That is pending litigation within the Department of Justice,” Bondi replied.

“Well, it’s pending litigation, but will you enforce that law?” Blumenthal pressed.

“I can’t discuss pending litigation, but I will talk to all the career prosecutors who are handling the case,” Bondi responded.

Notice what Blumenthal said about the Supreme Court. The high court is currently considering TikTok’s challenge of the law but has yet to issue a ruling by the close of Wednesday:

Why is Trump so personally passionate about TikTok? After TikTok chief Shou Zi Chew flew to Mar-a-Lago last month, the president-elect posted data to social media showing that he’s a star on the platform.

“Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” he added in a separate social media post published this month.

As for the deal he might pursue, some sources said it might involve “carving off pieces of the company for sale to satisfy the law, give American companies a slice of the business, and let him take credit for sealing the deal,” according to the Post.

“During Trump’s first term, he pushed to force the sale of a large stake in the company to corporate giants such as Oracle and Walmart, as long as the U.S. Treasury got a cut of the proceeds, and one of the people involved in the recent discussions suggested Trump may pursue a similar option during his second term,” the Post notes.

But one source claimed this deal is unlikely to manifest because of the political risks and the exorbitant price tag on TikTok.

Some sources also raised concerns about whether it’s even worth it considering that TikTok has lost some market appeal in the past few years as competitors have emerged.

Vivek Saxena

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