President-elect Donald Trump vowed to repeal President Joe Biden’s “radical and foolish” executive orders “within hours” of taking office on Monday and reiterated his commitment to getting a U.S. investor to buy TikTok from its Chinese owner.
Trump took the stage at the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, D.C., where he took a victory lap the night before his second inauguration. The 20,000-seat arena was packed, despite the cold weather, with thousands of Trump supporters who were eager to celebrate the president-elect’s return to the White House.
“Starting tomorrow, I will act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country. We have to do it,” Trump said on Sunday. Or else, “we’re not going to have a country.”
After his swearing-in ceremony, on Monday afternoon, the incoming president is expected to sign about 100 executive orders on issues ranging from illegal immigration to the economy. Senate majority whip John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) recently promised that the executive orders will cause “shock and awe” once they’re issued.
Trump, similarly, said his supporters are “going to have a lot of fun watching television” on Monday, referring to the expected blitz of orders — and he promised he won’t relent.
“Somebody said yesterday, ‘Sir, don’t sign so many in one day. Let’s do it over a period of weeks.’ I said, ‘Like hell we’re going to do it over weeks. We’re going to sign them'” quickly, Trump said. He added there will be “plenty” more to sign in the near future. “It’s not going to stop.”
During the wide-ranging speech, Trump touted his involvement in saving TikTok from a federal law that forces the video-sharing platform to divest itself of its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or find a U.S. investor to buy it.
The app experienced a short-lived ban, starting at midnight on Sunday, after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law. But once Trump laid out his plan for restoring TikTok in the U.S., the app came back online for about 170 million users in the U.S. Earlier on Sunday, Trump confirmed that he will sign an executive order on Monday to grant TikTok a 90-day extension to the deadline to find a U.S. buyer and rid itself of the Chinese government’s influence.
Trump also promised that his executive order will not hold any company liable for keeping the app “from going dark” before it’s signed, after which TikTok began restoring service to American users on Sunday afternoon in agreement with its service providers.
“As of today, TikTok is back,” Trump proclaimed.
The president-elect began using TikTok during his 2024 campaign, quickly gaining millions of followers. His account boasts nearly 15 million followers and posts videos that gain many millions of views. He believes his presence on the app helped contribute to his overwhelming electoral victory, particularly among young voters.
“We won the youth vote by 36 points, so I like TikTok,” Trump said. He noted that 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney lost the youth vote by 40 points while running against the incumbent president at the time, Barack Obama.
Furthermore, Trump announced he wants the U.S. to have 50 percent ownership of TikTok as part of a joint venture with a buyer. The U.S. will only approve the purchase, not put up any money for it, he noted.
“By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to [stay] up,” he wrote on Truth Social earlier on Sunday. “Without U.S. approval, there is no [TikTok]. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars — maybe trillions.”
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary and YouTuber MrBeast are among the figures reportedly interested in buying TikTok. O’Leary said he offered $20 billion in cash for the app, while MrBeast said he would buy it after meeting with billionaires. Elon Musk was also rumored to be a potential buyer, although a TikTok spokesperson dismissed this as “pure fiction.”
“Whether you like TikTok or not, we’re going to make a lot of money,” Trump said at the pre-inauguration rally celebrating his electoral victory.
Monday’s inauguration is historic in many ways. Trump will be the first president to serve nonconsecutive terms in nearly 140 years since Grover Cleveland, who served from 1885 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897. It will also be the first time since 1985, when Ronald Reagan took the oath of office for the second time, that the swearing-in ceremony will be held inside the Capitol Rotunda because of frigid temperatures in the nation’s capital.