Donald Trump urges US Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban
US President-elect Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to delay an impending ban on TikTok while he works on a “political solution”.
His lawyers filed a legal brief with the court on Friday, saying Trump “opposes a ban on TikTok” and “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
On January 10, the court will hear arguments on a U.S. law that would require TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance to sell the social media company to an American company or face a January 19, Trump The day before he took office) faced a ban.
U.S. officials and lawmakers have accused ByteDance of having ties to the Chinese government, which the company denies.
The accusations against the app, which has 170 million users in the United States, led Congress to pass a bill in April that President Joe Biden signed into law that included demands for divestment or banning.
TikTok and ByteDance have filed multiple legal challenges to the law, arguing it threatens free speech protections in the United States, but with little success. With no potential buyers emerging so far, the companies’ last chance to lift the ban is through the U.S. High Court.
While the Supreme Court previously declined to act on requests for an emergency injunction against the law, it agreed to allow TikTok, ByteDance and the U.S. government to plead their cases on January 10, just days before the ban was to take effect.
Trump meets TikTok CEOShou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.
Trump said in a court filing Friday that the case represents “unprecedented, novel and difficult tensions between the right to free speech and foreign policy and national security concerns.”
While the document said Trump “does not take a position on the underlying issues in this dispute,” it added that delaying the January 19 deadline would give Trump “the opportunity to pursue a political solution” without the need for litigation. The courts.
The U.S. Department of Justice has argued that China’s alleged ties to TikTok pose a national security threat, and multiple state governments have also expressed concerns about the popular social media app.
Nearly two dozen state attorneys general, led by Montana’s Austin Knutson, have urged the Supreme Court to uphold laws that force ByteDance and TikTok to divest or be banned.
Early December, A federal appeals court rejects an attempt overturned the legislation, saying it was “the culmination of extensive bipartisan action by Congress and past presidents.”
Trump has publicly stated his opposition to the ban, despite supporting one during his first term as president.
“I have a warm place in my heart for TikTok because I won with young people by 34 points,” he claimed at a press conference in early December, even though a majority of young voters supported his opponent, Kamala Harris.
“Some people say TikTok has something to do with this,” he added.
