The White Home stated Friday that the TikTok ban will fall to President-elect Trump’s administration after the Supreme Court docket upheld a legislation requiring the app’s China-based guardian firm to divest from it.
The Supreme Court docket opted to facet with the Biden administration days earlier than Trump’s inauguration, discovering the divest-or-ban legislation doesn’t violate the First Modification and teeing up a ban set to take impact Sunday.
“The Administration, like the rest of the country, has awaited the decision just made by the U.S. Supreme Court on the TikTok matter,” White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated in a press release. “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 informed CNN in an interview Friday that the TikTok ban is now as much as him.
“It ultimately goes up to me, so you’re going to see what I’m going to do,” he stated, with out detailing what his choice will probably be.
Trump, who had beforehand criticized TikTok, has more and more expressed sympathy with the app because the ban approached, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will attend his inauguration.
Jean-Pierre’s assertion reiterated President Biden’s opinion on TikTok, which is that the app “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.”
The White Home supported and Biden signed the bipartisan invoice handed by Congress final April, which gave TikTok’s guardian firm ByteDance 270 days to divest from the app or face a ban from U.S. app shops.
In the meantime, Trump had urged the justices to delay the deadline so he may negotiate a deal. The court docket on Friday was unanimous in its judgment, though Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch filed separate concurrences.
TikTok has argued divestment just isn’t a possible possibility and that it’ll “go dark” as of Sunday. However the court docket rejected these arguments, as a substitute ruling in favor of the federal government.
