“Booker’s speech tops 350M likes on TikTok live,” declares the headline over at The Hill.
Hey, remember TikTok? Remember how large bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate passed a law requiring that TikTok be sold or banned, President Biden signed it into law, and the Supreme Court upheld the law?
And remember how upon taking office, President Trump essentially declared, “nah, I don’t feel like doing that?” Shortly after taking office, he issued an executive order “instructing the Attorney General not to take any action to enforce the Act for a period of 75 days from today to allow my administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans.”
Nothing in the law’s text said the president could suspend it for 75 days. Trump’s defenders argued that the president didn’t have to enforce the law if a sale of the company was imminent. On February 3, Trump said, “Numerous people are talking to me, very substantial people, about buying it, and I will make that decision probably over the next 30 days.” That was 58 days ago.
The 75 day deadline is three days away. ByteDance still owns TikTok.
Trump is scheduled to have a meeting today to discuss potential sales options. In remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One over the weekend, Trump said, “We have a lot of potential buyers. There’s a lot of interest in TikTok. The decision is going to be my decision.”
The deal led by Oracle would give the company a small stake in a new American entity. Oracle would provide security assurances for US data while potentially leaving the app’s valuable algorithm in Chinese hands, according to a proposal previously circulated within the administration.
It remains unclear if ByteDance and the Chinese have been involved in the conversations.
That seems like an important detail, doesn’t it?