Congress plows ahead with bill targeting TikTok against Donald Trump's wishes
WASHINGTON – Congress is moving ahead with plans to force TikTok’s parent company to sell the popular social media app or face a ban, despite opposition from former President Donald Trump.
The House vote to be held Wednesday is expected to pass with sizable bipartisan support, and President Joe Biden said on Friday that he would sign the legislation if it makes it to his desk.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing. Members of the House’s Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party argue that it creates “an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security” by allowing the Chinese government to “surveil and influence the American public.”
If the bill passes, it won’t be for lack of trying on TikTok’s part. The company’s CEO is expected to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of the vote, and TikTok pushed users to reach out to members last week, prompting a flood of messages that irked some lawmakers.
It’s a show of steadiness in a chamber often disrupted by Trump’s influence. House Speaker Mike Johnson supports the bill and says TikTok is "actively undermining our economy and security." He told reporters Monday that he hasn’t talked to the former president about the legislation and still plans to bring it up for a vote on Wednesday.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, the fourth-highest ranking member of GOP leadership, said she still supports the bill and, when asked about Trump’s influence, said they’re focused on gauging the interest of House members.
The bill's future in the Senate is more uncertain. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hasn’t said whether he would bring it up for a vote and at least one senator – Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., – has said he would block speedy passage in the upper chamber.
“In a free country you don’t take people’s companies,” Paul told USA TODAY. “I think it also violates the First Amendment rights of 180 million Americans who use it so I’m absolutely opposed to it.”
The leading Republican and Democrat on that committee introduced the legislation, that would make TikTok unavailable in app stores or web hosting services – effectively making it unavailable to U.S. users – unless it severs ties with ByteDance within 180 days.
TikTok has said it now uses a separate, U.S.-based entity from ByteDance to store its American user data in response to lawmaker concerns.
The bipartisan bill has had a speedy rise. Introduced last Tuesday, it passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee with a unanimous 50-member vote on Thursday – a mark of cohesion that Stefanik noted when asked whether Trump will influence the vote. It’s set to be considered by the full House on Wednesday and will require a two-thirds majority vote to pass.
Trump starts pulling strings on Capitol Hill
Trump wields significant influence over Republicans in Congress and has successfully derailed policy fights before. Despite unsuccessfully attempting to ban the platform when he was president, Trump has come out against the House bill, raising concerns it would push users to Facebook instead.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” he wrote on Truth Social last week, referring to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!”
In an interview with CNBC Monday, Trump added that he does believe TikTok is a national security threat, but that a lot of young people would “go crazy without it.”
Trump met recently with Jeff Yass, a major GOP donor and a donor to the Trump-allied Club for Growth. Yass has a multibillion-dollar stake in TikTok, the Wall Street Journal reported last year. Former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway is also reportedly advocating for TikTok on Capitol Hill on behalf of Club for Growth.
But Trump told CNBC that he and Yass did not discuss the platform during their meeting. “He never mentioned TikTok,” he said. A spokesperson for the Club for Growth did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
House Republicans stand by the bill despite Trump's opposition
Trump’s apparent flip-flop on banning TikTok has raised eyebrows among House Republicans who are supporting the effort to strongarm ByteDance into selling the app.
Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., told USA TODAY he doesn’t “understand the rationale,” behind Trump’s opposition and was concerned his influence could affect final support for the bill when it hits the House floor for a vote.
“I don’t know who’s advising him,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, said of Trump’s statements on TikTok, “I don’t agree with him on everything, I agree with him on most things but this isn’t one of them.”
“Well he’s wrong,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a co-sponsor of the bill, said. “He had his own executive orders and his own actions he was doing and now he’s suddenly flipped around on that.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said TikTok urging users to call lawmakers was “a tactical mistake” but that he’s still making up his mind: “I’m not a fan of the Communist Chinese but I’m a fan of the First Amendment, so I’m kind of torn.”
The American Civil Liberties Union has also come out against the legislation, saying it is a threat to First Amendment rights: “Just because the bill sponsors claim that banning TikTok isn’t about suppressing speech, there’s no denying that it would do just that,” senior policy counsel Jenna Leventoff said in a statement.
However, Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, came out in support of the bill and urged lawmakers to vote for it on Wednesday.
An unclear future in the Senate
If the bill does pass the House, it’s not clear it will be welcomed with open arms in the upper chamber.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who supports the House bill, said he “wouldn’t hold my breath” that the bill would come up for a vote on the Senate floor: “There’s a coalition of folks who are very much in favor of this but also an entrenched coalition of people who don’t want this.”
“It’s a very good sign,” that it’s moving ahead in the House, said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., called the app “toxic” and said he thinks the legislation will be successful.
The second-ranking Republican in the Senate, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said the app is a national security threat, “so I don’t have a problem with where the House is headed on this.”
But others said they’re concerned that the House bill could open up legal vulnerabilities by targeting a specific company, or other solutions could better tackle the issue.
“My concern is that if you try to deal with this by name, you’re playing a game of Whack-a-mole,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “Because what’s TikTok today will come up next week as TockTik or TicTack or whatever.”
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told Politico that she prefers another bill that would allow the Commerce Department to regulate TikTok and other foreign apps.
“I'm glad they brought up a subject but we got to get a real solution,” Cantwell said. The House bill, “I don't think will make it all the way through.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Congress to vote on law targeting TikTok against Donald Trump's wishes
