Will Donald Trump save TikTok from Joe Biden? He’s going to try
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Analysis: Trump sees halting the bipartisan TikTok ban as an easy way to show he’s delivering results. He’s probably right, writes John Bowden. But at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump sees an opportunity to play the hero for millions of Americans who use the app daily — and to do so by spurning his onetime rival, Joe Biden.
![[Mike Waltz, Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, confirmed that the administration wants to halt the restrictions of the app passed by Congress.]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/11/12/00/GettyImages-1728639358.jpg)
Legislation passed by Congress and signed by Biden will take effect on Sunday: It forces the sale, divestiture, or ban of the app if the two former options are not taken. The ban would not make usage of the app illegal, however, it will prevent app stores from allowing users to download it.
TikTok’s executives are getting ahead of the impending restriction. They plan to take the app down for all U.S. users — preventing any usage at all — beginning on Sunday. The intent is to enrage the app’s massive fanbase, and exert further political pressure on Washington. Those users pushed competitor RedNote close to the top of app store download lists on Thursday as a sudden desire for a TikTok-alternative set in.
The company has tried these kinds of D.C. pressure campaigns before. They haven’t ended well. But Donald Trump is a different story. “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” the incoming president has said about the app. “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?”.
With reporting in The Washington Post on Wednesday indicating that the president-elect is looking for options to prevent the ban through executive action and TikTok’s CEO now on the Trump inauguration guest list, one thing is abundantly clear: the benefits presented by the app for a social media-savvy president clearly outweigh any concern he has for the national security concerns that lawmakers in Washington believe the app poses.
