On one side of the ban TikTok debate, we have 21 Republican state attorneys general, including Virginia AG Jason Miyares.
On the other side, we have Donald Trump, who was once, quite bombastically, for a TikTok ban, but now has a “warm spot” in his heart for the Chinese Communist Party-backed social media app because he thinks it helped sway young voters to his side in the 2024 election.
According to the exit polls, Trump lost to Democrat Kamala Harris among voters ages 18 to 29 by a 54 percent to 43 percent margin.
This was six to seven points better than his 60 percent to 36 percent loss to Joe Biden in 2020 among the 18-29 age subset, but still, one, he still lost the kids by double-digits, and two, he’s sure he cut the margin down because of TikTok?
Anyway, Trump is now trying to get his Supreme Court to at least delay the Jan. 19 deadline for a federal TikTok ban, with one of his attorneys suggesting that he could use his, ahem, “consummate dealmaking expertise” to save the platform.
Trump’s “consummate dealmaking experience” had him on the verge of insolvency before he announced his campaign for president in 2015.
The only thing that saved him is PT Barnum being right about a sucker being born every minute.
“President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture, and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office,” wrote D. John Sauer, one of Trump’s personal appellate attorneys.
This Sauer guy is also Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. solicitor general, which would have him taking over the government’s defense of the TikTok ban passed by Congress and signed into law last year from the Biden administration.
Trump has vowed to “save TikTok,” though, as with his idea for redoing healthcare to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, he’s still at the “concepts of a plan” stage.
In the meantime, the Supremes are going to hear oral arguments in TikTok’s First Amendment challenge to the new law banning the app on Jan. 10.
Miyares and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen are leading the group of Republican state AGs in the effort to support the 2024 law, styled the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which prohibits TikTok from being available to U.S. consumers unless its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, sells its stake in the platform.
In response, ByteDance and TikTok sued the federal government, but a federal appeals court upheld the law earlier this month, citing national security concerns.
“Allowing TikTok to operate in the United States without severing its ties to the Chinese Communist Party exposes Americans to the undeniable risks of having their data accessed and exploited by the Chinese Communist Party. Virginians deserve a government that stands firm in protecting their privacy and security,” Miyares said.
A press release from Miyares’ office cites whistleblower reports and leaked documents revealing that ByteDance has given the Chinese Communist Party access to sensitive U.S. user data, including locations, facial recognition data, and browsing habits.
ByteDance employees in Beijing allegedly maintain “backdoor” access to this data, while CCP affiliates hold “superuser” credentials, enabling potential espionage against public officials, journalists, and others deemed adversarial to its interests.
“The Supreme Court now has the chance to affirm Congress’s authority to protect Americans from foreign threats while ensuring that the First Amendment doesn’t become a tool to defend foreign adversaries’ exploitative practices,” Miyares said.
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Chris Graham
