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With a nationwide ban on the social media platform TikTok just days away, President-elect Donald Trump officially asked the Supreme Court to extend the company’s deadline to divest from ByteDance, its Chinese parent company.
In a nonpartisan amicus brief filed on December 27, Trump’s team wrote, “On January 20, 2025, President Trump will assume responsibility for the United States’ national security, foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.”
Incoming White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told Fox News that the deadline extension would “allow President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue in a way that saves TikTok and preserves American national security once he resumes office as President of the United States on January 20, 2025.”
The brief argues that “this case presents an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national-security concerns on the other,” and that as Chief Executive, Trump “is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means.”
Additionally, Trump’s brief points out that he “also has a unique interest in the First Amendment issues raised in the case.”
“Through his historic victory on November 5, 2024, President Trump received a powerful electoral mandate from American voters to protect the free-speech rights of all Americans—including the 170 million Americans who use TikTok,” the brief argues.
The brief also notes that Trump “is uniquely situated to vindicate these interests, because ‘the President and the Vice President of the United States are the only elected officials who represent all the voters in the Nation.’”
Trump’s team also argues he “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government—concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged.”
The ban is set to take effect on January 19, just one day before Trump’s inauguration. His team argues, “This unfortunate timing interferes with President Trump’s ability to manage the United States’ foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights.”
“The Act imposes a timing constraint, moreover, without specifying any compelling government interest in that particular deadline.”
Trump’s team noted that the law “contemplates a 90-day extension to the deadline under certain specified circumstances.”
If the ban takes effect, Apple and Google will no longer be able to offer TikTok in their United States app stores. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments during a special session on January 10.
TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew has testified before Congress on multiple occasions, denying that the company was beholden to the Chinese Communist Party.
He recently met with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, signaling his support for the platform.
