Why Trump Flip-flopped on Tik Tok

Trump is looking for money and a way to drive a wedge with younger voters

Yesterday, the infamously dysfunctional Republican House Majority passed a bill. Not only did they earn the taxpayer-funded salary, they actually did it in a bipartisan fashion.

According to Politico:

The House passed a bill on Wednesday that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell the app or face a ban on U.S. app stores — posing the most serious threat to the popular video-sharing platform to date.

The measure earned wide bipartisan support — passing 352-65 — with backing from House Speaker Mike Johnson and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Its “no” votes spanned a wide ideological range, including both conservative lawmakers like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who raised Amendment concerns, and progressives like Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) who say Congress should pass privacy legislation covering all social media sites, not just TikTok.

This level of bipartisan cooperation is rare these days, especially with a bill passing on a topic as culturally relevant as the world’s fastest growing social media site. I will leave the national security rationale (Pod Save the World), the legal issues (Strict Scrutiny), and the implications on the tech world (Offline) to others. Instead, I will focus on the politics of banning TikTok. President Biden would sign the legislation. After trying to ban TikTok as President, Trump has flip-flopped and now opposes forcing TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the app.

TikTok will be a prime battleground for the 2024 information war. Right Wing TikTok influencers use the platform to push unflattering and disingenuous memes about President Biden’s age and mental fitness. The Biden campaign worked with TikTok influencers to push the President’s message and recently joined the app with Biden appearing in multiple TikToks responding to Trump’s gaffes du jour.

The politics of banning TikTok are, um, complicated — to say the least. And Trump is clearly trying to use the issue to drive a wedge in Biden’s coalition. Here’s how — and why:

Will TikTok Be Banned?

The answer is almost certainly no — for the foreseeable future at least. The bill that just passed the House does not ban TikTok. It is using the threat of the ban to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to an entity that is not controlled by the Chinese government.

The financial upside is that ByteDance would rather sell than face a complete ban in the United States.