Trump flip-flops on anti-TikTok bill — and blames Biden — after supporting ban as president
Former President Donald Trump wants the nation’s youngsters to blame President Biden for the TikTok divestment ban, and to remember it come election night.
“Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok,” Trump, 77, posted on Truth Social Monday.
“He is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant, and able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the Republican Party.”
Trump has long been vexed by Facebook — owned by Meta — which booted him from the platform in early 2021 due to the Capitol riot. He has since been allowed back.
On Saturday, the GOP-led House advanced a measure compelling Chinese-linked parent company ByteDance to sell off TikTok within 270 days, with a possible 90-day extension, or else be restricted from app stores and web-hosting services. Biden, 81, has indicated he’d sign it.
Proponents of the measure have underscored that it is not a straight-up “ban,” but rather a forced divestment to ensure China doesn’t have access to that monster trove of user data.
Trump came out against efforts in Congress to go after TikTok last month. However, as president, he signed an executive order to block the popular video-sharing site.
Ultimately, a court blocked that action.
GOP megadonor Jeff Yass had been personally lobbying Republicans in the House to derail efforts against TikTok, The Post previously reported. Yass’ fund had a roughly $33 billion stake in ByteDance.
Critics have speculated that Yass may have influenced Trump’s reversal on TikTok.
“It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE! Young people, and lots of others, must remember this on November 5th, ELECTION DAY, when they vote!” Trump went on.
“They also must remember, more importantly, that he is destroying our Country, and is A MAJOR THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”
TikTok claims to sport roughly 170 million users. The divestment measure, which was nestled in a package featuring penalties against Iran and Russia, cleared the lower chamber in a 360-58 vote Saturday.
It now heads to the Senate for a vote expected Tuesday, where it will be merged with three other bills featuring aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan under a parliamentary process known as the MIRV rule.
TikTok has raged against Congress and blasted out pop-ups on its platform encouraging its users to call their representatives and lobby them against the bill.
But the Senate is widely expected to pass it nonetheless.
Although TikTok is technically based out of Singapore and Los Angeles, ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party have rattled national security experts.
TikTok has a vast reservoir of biometric identifiers, browsing history information, location data, and more on millions of Americans, which it hoovers up as users navigate the platform.
Many in the national security world fear that China could harvest that information for surveillance purposes.
Leadership on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has warned that Beijing’s laws stipulate that “all organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.”
TikTok has disputed this and committed to a $1.5 billion investment in so-called “Project Texas,” intended to push American data into servers run by Austin-headquartered Oracle.
“We have not been asked for any data by the Chinese government and we have never provided it,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew stressed to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year.
Popular American social media platforms such as Facebook, X, YouTube, and more are banned in China.
