Trump signed an executive order Monday giving TikTok an additional 75 days before a law banning the popular video-sharing platform takes effect.
Trump instructed his attorney general not to enforce the law so his administration can “determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans.”
Former President Biden said he wouldn’t enforce the ban during the final days in the White House, but the app still shut down for more than 12 hours beginning Saturday night — then came back online Sunday following Trump’s announcement that he planned to delay the ban.
Some China hawks in Congress are already breaking from the newly inaugurated president on the issue, standing firm that the app should not be available in the U.S. without an official divestiture deal on the table.
“We commend Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft for following the law and halting operations with ByteDance and TikTok, and we encourage other companies to do the same,” Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) wrote in a statement Sunday.
“The law, after all, risks ruinous bankruptcy for any company who violates it," they added.
Trump’s shifted plans on TikTok has created one of the earliest disagreements between the president and members of his party on a highly polarizing issue.
In his first term, the president sometimes clashed with Republican defectors, whether it be in public or online spaces.
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) also questioned the legality of a potential executive order delaying the ban Monday.
“I’m not sure what the legal authority is for a president to issue an executive order down to a law that was just passed and upheld by the Supreme Court of United States,” Cramer told CNN’s Manu Raju, according to a post on the social platform X.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com
