House Republican leaders are seeking to pass legislation this week that would force TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell the platform or face a ban in the United States, even after former President Donald J. Trump opposed it The popular social media app he once vowed to ban.
Rep. Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and majority leader, said Monday that the House would try to speed passage of the bill under special procedures reserved for non-controversial legislation that require a two-thirds majority to pass. The approach reflected the bill’s growing momentum on Capitol Hill in an election year when members of both political parties are eager to show their willingness to get tough on China.
“We must ensure that the Chinese government cannot weaponize TikTok through data collection and propaganda against American users and our government,” Mr. Scalise said in his weekly preview of the legislation to be considered in the House of Representatives.
The 13-page bill is the product of the Chinese Communist Party’s special committee, which has served as an island of bipartisanship in the polarized House of Representatives. The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously last week to advance legislation that would remove TikTok from app stores in the United States by September 30 unless Beijing-based parent company ByteDance sells its shares.
But Mr. Trump, who as president issued an executive order that did just that, has now changed course and is vocally opposed to the bill, a move that will test his ability to push bipartisan legislation in Congress off the campaign trail to continue fighting.
Mr. Trump offered a long-winded explanation for his about-face on Monday: He didn’t want to alienate young voters or give more power to Facebook, which he considers a mortal enemy.
In an interview on CNBC, Mr. Trump said that he still sees TikTok as a threat to national security but that a ban would “drive young people crazy.” He added that any action that harms the platform would benefit Facebook, which he called an “enemy of the people.”
“Honestly, there are a lot of people on TikTok who love it,” Trump said. “There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who go crazy without it.”
“TikTok has a lot of good and a lot of bad,” he added, “but what I don’t like is that you can make Facebook bigger without TikTok, and I think Facebook is an enemy of the people, along with a lot of media.”
It is not yet clear whether Mr. Trump’s about-face on the issue will undermine the bill’s broad support in the House, where the brewing fight over the legislation has become more tense. Many lawmakers were angry last week when TikTok sent its users flooding Congress’ phone lines with calls urging members not to shut down the platform.
“Trump’s flip-flop on TikTok puts House Republicans in a very awkward position because it forces them to choose between supporting Trump or standing up to China,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic strategist. “Voters on both sides of the aisle don’t trust China to follow meaningful rules and believe China is determined to get away with whatever it can get away with, and that would also apply to China’s control of TikTok.”
The law is one of several efforts over the past year aimed at restricting TikTok amid concerns that ByteDance’s relationship with Beijing poses national security risks, and President Biden has said he would sign it.
One of the bill’s co-sponsors is Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the third-ranking Republican whose name is on every short list for Mr. Trump’s candidacy and who is rarely caught out of step with the former president.
As he heads toward the Republican nomination, Mr. Trump is making greater interventions in Congress over his party’s agenda than at any time since leaving office. His vocal opposition to upcoming TikTok legislation came just weeks after he used his influence with Republicans in Congress to help push through a bipartisan immigration bill in the Senate that was touted as a golden opportunity for conservative border security legislation .
But unlike the issue of immigration, the two parties are not divided on TikTok; Both see political advantage in supporting policies that target China.
Still, Mr. Trump’s advocacy against the bill appears to be having some effect. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on “Meet the Press” that he was “really divided” about the ban. In 2020, Mr. Graham defended Mr. Trump’s actions against the company, writing on social media that the president “rightly wanted to ensure that the Chinese Communist Party does not own TikTok and, more importantly, all of your private data.” “
On Sunday, Mr. Graham said he did not yet know how he would vote on the bill if it were introduced in the Senate. “I definitely felt conflicted,” he said.
And it’s not clear what prospects the bill would have in the Senate, where Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and majority leader, has not committed to bringing it up.
In a rare display of bipartisanship in the House of Representatives, top Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the China panel used nearly identical language to describe TikTok’s risks.
“America’s greatest adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States,” said Republican Leader Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin. His Democratic counterpart, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, said TikTok “poses a critical threat to our national security” as long as it is owned by ByteDance.
But after the bill sailed through a House committee last week, Trump lashed out at Truth Social, his social media platform, writing: “If you get rid of TikTok,” Facebook’s business will double. He said he didn’t want Facebook to “get better.”
Mr. Trump was banned from Facebook the day after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and reinstated early last year.
To support his claim as an “enemy of the people,” Mr. Trump pointed to grants that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave to state and local election offices in 2020 to help with their election administration during the pandemic. Mr. Trump suggested that Mr. Zuckerberg, whose website was part of the Trump campaign’s strategy in both 2016 and 2020, should face prison time for these donations.
When asked on Monday about allegations that he was “paid” to change his mind about TikTok after a meeting with a major TikTok investor, billionaire Jeff Yass, Mr. Trump denied it. Mr. Trump reportedly praised Mr. Yass, a major donor to the Club for Growth, as “fantastic,” and the group recently reconnected with him after a years-long stalemate.
Through the Club for Growth, Mr. Yass has funded a major advocacy group in Washington to stop the TikTok ban. He and his allies have recruited several former Trump administration officials to help with the effort — including Tony Sayegh, who was a Treasury Department official, and Kellyanne Conway, who was a senior adviser to the president.
In the CNBC interview, Mr. Trump said he did not discuss TikTok with Mr. Yass during their meeting.
“No, I didn’t,” Mr. Trump said, saying it was a brief meeting with Mr. Yass and his wife. “He never mentioned TikTok.”
Mr. Trump’s criticism of the new legislation is striking given that he has sought to restrict the company during his time in office. An executive order he signed in August 2020 said TikTok’s data collection from its users “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party to access Americans’ personal and proprietary information.” It added that TikTok could be used to spread disinformation to benefit Beijing.
“These risks are real,” the executive order states.
Mr Trump’s administration has decided to block the Apple and Google app stores from distributing TikTok because of concerns about the app’s Chinese ownership. But federal courts repeatedly ruled to block Mr. Trump’s TikTok ban from taking effect.
David McCabe and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
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2024-03-11 21:18:14
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