President-elect Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to let him negotiate a deal to save TikTok from an impending US ban.
In one Amicus briefly Trump says that when he takes office, he “seeks the ability to solve the problems at hand through political means” and that he “alone has the deep dealmaking expertise, electoral mandate and political will to negotiate a solution.” . to save the platform.”
Last week the Supreme Court agreed to listen to arguments that a bill passed by Congress banning TikTok on national security grounds violates the First Amendment. The bill gives the president wide latitude to delay its enforcement if there is progress toward an agreement that ensures TikTok is not fully controlled by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
However, the deadline for this decision is January 19, one day before Trump’s scheduled inauguration.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Trump is asking to push back the bill’s Jan. 19 deadline, arguing that the deal he would negotiate “would obviate the need for this court to address the historically challenging question of the First Amendment.” , which is presented here, to decide in the current, very accelerated form. “Basic.”
He doesn’t provide details about what that deal would look like, although ByteDance would likely have to sell a significant portion of its ownership of TikTok to an American company.
Trump argues that the fact that he has over 14 million followers on TikTok and that he owns Truth Social gives him the unique ability to “assess TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political expression.” He also quotes Brazil’s temporary ban on Elon Musk’s X as an example of “the historic dangers” posed by the government banning a social media platform.
However, political pressure to enforce a TikTok ban is still strong. A group of senators and congressmen, including Mitch McConnell and Ro Khanna, filed petitions on FridayThey, along with 22 US states and former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, called on the Supreme Court to reject TikTok’s appeal.
