Trump asks Supreme Court to delay TikTok ban

President-elect Donald Trump filed an amicus brief on Friday petitioning the Supreme Court to place on hold a Jan. 19 deadline for the Chinese-owned social media platform to be sold to an American owner or be banned from the United States. The current deadline is one day before Trump’s scheduled inauguration. An extended deadline would allow his incoming administration to negotiate an alternative solution while the high court considers the case’s merits, wrote D. John Sauer, Trump’s pick for solicitor general. The court has already agreed to hear TikTok’s appeal of the case, scheduling oral arguments for Jan. 10. 

President Joe Biden signed legislation in April that would ban the app from the United States within a year unless TikTok cut ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance. Legislators passed the legislation after citing several security and censorship concerns posed by the app. Several lower courts rejected ByteDance’s argument that the law was unconstitutional for violating principles of equal protection and due process. The law aimed to protect the American right to free speech from a foreign adversary, according to the opinion penned by federal appeals Judge Douglas Ginsburg. The measure is specifically tailored to protect national security, not hamper free speech, he added. 

Didn’t Trump want to ban TikTok when he was last in office? During his last term, a Trump executive order banned the United States from doing business with TikTok. His opinion was that the app threatened America’s national security, foreign policy, and economy, according to his explanation letter to legislators. Trump’s order was later revoked by a contrasting executive order from Biden.

Trump is now petitioning for Americans to continue using the app, alleging that his administration aims to negotiate a compromise with ByteDance. Extending the deadline would keep the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans intact while also addressing the government’s concerns over national security, according to Trump’s SCOTUS filing. 

Dig deeper: Read Travis K. Kircher’s report for more background on the Supreme Court’s agreeing to hear TikTok’s appeal.