President-elect Trump Flips Flops On Banning TikTok
‘Ignore this amicus sophistry’: WSJ editorial board in disbelief at Trump’s latest antic
Story by Daniel Hampton. December 31, 2024
In 2020, Trump signed an executive order banning TikTok if it wasn’t sold within 45 day.
In the intervening four years with Trump sulking like a spoiled brat at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in hoity-toity Palm Beach, Florida, Congress passed a law banning TikTok in the US and President Biden signed it into law.
TikTok challenged the law and now the Supreme Court will decide on the validity.
Now, in 2024, Trump wants to keep TikTok, before the law takes effect on January 19, 2025 if it can’t be sold to a US company. How ironic! Trump ain’t President until he takes the oath of office and sworn in as President the day after TikTok is shut down in the United States.
The U.S. only has one president at a single moment in time.
But that’s debatable with Trump’s second term as president, with Elon Musk as the puppeteer controlling Trump’s strings. This time he will be a lame-duck president.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board weighed in on Trump’s last minute appeal to Save TikTok, calling his last ditch effort , “extraordinary in several ways, none of them good.”
Trump — who once signed an executive order four years ago threatening to ban the popular social media app — this month asked the Supreme Court to let him “save” TikTok ahead of a looming nationwide ban set to take effect Jan. 19 if its Chinese parent company doesn’t sell it to a U.S. company.
Trump asked the high court to delay the deadline until after he returns to the Oval Officeso his administration can “seek a negotiated resolution.” Doing so would allow the case to be resolved without the Supreme Court interfering.
The Journal’s editorial board on Tuesday afternoon noted his amicus brief, which the high court will hear on Jan. 10, “implores the Justices to give him a chance to apply his ‘dealmaking’ skills to rescue TikTok from the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that passed Congress in April.”
The board was no fan of Trump’s argument, which it said essentially “wants the Supreme Court to treat him like a second President with Joe Biden so he can save TikTok. The brief is extraordinary in several ways, none of them good. Mr. Trump wants the Court to treat him as if he’s already President before he’s inaugurated. Trump for all intents and purposes is a “private citizen” until he’s inaugurated, the board countered. He is also in essence “asking the Justices to let him rewrite a law he doesn’t like.”
Trump, the board said, “instructs the Court that he deserves this power because he won the election and is a wizard on social media. Really, that’s his claim. We trust the Justices will ignore this amicus sophistry,” the Journal’s board concluded.
The board urged the justices to rebuff the MAGA leader and his argument that he has a special standing to represent U.S. TikTok users.
After touting himself as “one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history,” Trump argued that his “14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates,” allow him to “evaluate TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech.”
In Trump’s amicus brief, which was submitted by D. John Sauer, Trump’s pick for solicitor general, the president-elect said he takes “no position on the merits of the dispute.” Instead, he argued that a negotiated resolution by his administration could “prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.”
Trump’s calls to preserve free speech via the means of TikTok.
@RalphHightower: Hang on one second! Trump is an advocate of the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of the press and freedom of speech? Then why has he sued ABC News and the Des Moines Register I don’t understand it!
The brief continued to make the case for the former reality star and billionaire, stating, “President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged.”
@RalphHightower: Hah! “The Art of the Deal”
Earlier this month, Trump met with with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at his Mar-a-Lago estate, CBS News reported. At the time, Trump voiced his change-of-heart toward the video app, which has been valued at $100 billion. “We’ll take a look at TikTok. You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points,” Trump replied at a news conference when asked about the ban. “And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that.”
When addressing Trump’s pivot on the matter, Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told Politico, “When it comes to Donald Trump, follow the money.”