House Republican leaders are scheduled to vote on a bill Wednesday that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok, even as former President Trump appears to be undermining efforts to restrict the app.
Fox News Digital has learned that the House plans to table the bill under a suspended rule. This means bypassing normal procedural hurdles in exchange for raising the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds.
The bill passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee in unprecedented fashion. bipartisan 50-0 vote on Thursday.
Republican lawmakers press TikTok CEO over ‘flood of pro-hamas content’ on platform
Republican presidential candidate and former President Trump also expressed caution about banning TikTok. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Later that same day, President Trump wrote on his Truth Social app: “If we take out TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck’s business will double. Facebook, which cheated in the last election, will do better. I don’t want this. They are true justice.” He is an enemy of the people! ”
The move would ban TikTok from online app stores if parent company ByteDance does not sell it within 165 days. ByteDance is a Beijing-based tech company that critics say is under the influence of China’s ruling Communist Party, an allegation the company denies.
But TikTok has given the Chinese government access to mountains of sensitive U.S. user data, even though U.S. government officials claim there are guardrails in place to prevent it. He warned that there was a high possibility that
President Trump’s reluctance to ban it appears to be a shift from his pre-presidential position, when he tried to block apps in the United States in 2020.
he said in some words CNBC interview TikTok has “a lot of good and bad” Monday morning.
Kevin O’Leary proposes to buy TikTok and turn it into a ‘new American company’ if ban goes ahead
House Republican leaders aim to consider a bill Wednesday that would ban TikTok from U.S. app stores if ByteDance doesn’t pull the plug. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
President Trump acknowledged that he still believes TikTok is a national security threat, but added:[Y]Facebook and many other companies have the same problem. ”
“When you talk about very sophisticated companies that think they’re American, they’re not very American. They’re doing business with China… China will give them whatever they want. So it’s national security. It’s also an even higher risk,” President Trump said.
But Republican lawmakers who spoke to Fox News Digital expressed concern that Trump, as the de facto Republican leader, could sway House leadership and other lawmakers away from supporting the bill. I scoffed.
“Mr. Trump was right about the national security problem TikTok posed in 2020. And today, he was right that simply pushing TikTok users onto Facebook is not the solution. That’s why our bill moves forward. “This is the right path to take. It’s an opportunity to surgically remove the Chinese Communist Party’s control and make TikTok better,” said House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), one of the bill’s sponsors. Republican) told FOX News Digital.
Bill to ban TikTok app goes home after unanimous committee vote
Congressman Mike Gallagher (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
A senior Republican aide told Fox News Digital that a majority of members of Congress have “already been convicted” on TikTok.
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“This is a security threat and they’re going to do everything they can to prevent it. They’ll argue that we’re just asking them to buy it.” [a company in a non-adversarial country], it’s not actually shutting down. … So I don’t think a lot of people are necessarily upset at this point,” said a senior Republican aide.[Trump] We’ve supported things like this in the past. I think people will keep that in mind. ”
President Trump’s most senior Capitol Hill allies, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R.N.Y.), comment on President Trump’s criticism of the bill. was asked for, but did not respond. Both have expressed support.
