President-elect Donald Trump called upon the Supreme Court to delay a ban on social media platform TikTok.
Trump’s legal team filed a brief requesting the ban be paused to give him time to form a deal “through political means.”
“President Trump takes no position on the merits of the dispute,” the brief says. “Instead, he urges the Court to stay the statute’s effective date to allow his incoming Administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.”
“Moreover, President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history,” it reads. “Consistent with his commanding presence in this area, President Trump currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates, allowing him to evaluate TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech.”
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making 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 brief adds.
“President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture, and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office,” the filing asserts.
TikTok wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court that the law banning the platform is a violation of the First Amendment.
“Congress’s unprecedented attempt to single out petitioners and bar them from operating one of the nation’s most significant speech venues is profoundly unconstitutional,” the brief said.
President Joe Biden signed a law in April that gave TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, 270 days from enactment to sell the app.
