US President-elect Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to delay an upcoming TikTok ban while he works on a “political solution”.
His lawyer filed a legal brief with the court on Friday saying that Trump “opposes a ban on TikTok” and “seeks the opportunity to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”
On Jan. 10, the court is scheduled to hear arguments on a U.S. law that requires TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to sell the social media company to an American company on Jan. 19, a day before Trump’s inauguration. otherwise he will face a ban.
US officials and lawmakers had accused ByteDance of ties to the Chinese government – which the company denies.
Those claims about an app that has 170 million users in the U.S. led Congress to pass a bill in April that President Joe Biden signed that would impose a divestment or ban requirement.
TikTok and ByteDance have filed multiple lawsuits against the law, arguing that it threatens America’s protection of free speech, but with little success. Since no potential buyer has emerged, the companies’ last chance to derail the ban was through the U.S. Supreme Court.
While the Supreme Court had previously declined to act on a request for an injunction against the law, it agreed to allow TikTok, ByteDance and the U.S. government to bring their cases on January 10 – just days before the ban was announced force should come.
Trump met with the CEO of TikTokShou Zi Chew, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.
In his filing Friday, Trump said the case represents “an unprecedented, novel and difficult tension between the right to free speech on the one hand and foreign policy and national security concerns on the other.”
While the filing said Trump “takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute,” it added that delaying the Jan. 19 deadline would allow Trump “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution to the matter.” without having to go to court.
The US Department of Justice has argued that alleged Chinese links to TikTok pose a threat to national security – and several state governments have raised concerns about the popular social media app.
Nearly two dozen state attorneys general, led by Austin Knudsen of Montana, have asked the Supreme Court to uphold the law forcing ByteDance and TikTok to divest or ban them.
beginning of December, A federal appeals court rejected an attempt called for the law’s repeal, saying it was “the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by Congress and successive presidents.”
Trump has publicly stated that he opposes the ban, although he supported one during his first term as president.
“I have a heart for TikTok because I won the youth vote by 34 points,” he claimed at a press conference in early December, even though a majority of young voters supported his opponent Kamala Harris.
“There are people who say TikTok has something to do with it,” he added.
