Trump says banning TikTok would help Facebook, even if it’s a national security threat
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk, but that he is opposed to banning the wildly popular app because it would help his rival, Facebook, which he continues to criticize over his election loss in 2020.
Trump was asked last week in a call-in interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” about his comments that appeared to express opposition to a bill introduced by Congress that would effectively ban TikTok and other ByteDance apps from the Apple and Google app stores. as well as US web hosting services.
“Honestly, there are a lot of people on TikTok who love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without TikTok,” Trump told the hosts. “There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But what I don’t like is that without TikTok you will make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook an enemy of the people, along with a large part of the media.”
“When I look at it, I don’t want to double down on Facebook,” he added. “I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”
Trump has repeatedly complained about Facebook’s role in the 2020 election, which he still refuses to admit he lost to President Joe Biden. That includes at least $400 million that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife donated to two nonprofits that handed out grants to state and local governments to help them administer the 2020 elections at the height of the COVID 19 pandemic.
The donations — which were fully allowed under campaign finance law — were used to pay for things like ballot processing equipment and drive-thru voting locations.
TikTok, a video-sharing app, has become a major issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. The platform has about 170 million users in the US, most of whom are younger – a demographic that both parties are desperately trying to court in the run-up to the November general election. Younger voters are especially difficult to reach for campaigns as they turn away from traditional platforms like cable TV.
Biden’s 2024 campaign officially joined TikTok last month, even as he has raised his own national security concerns about the platform, banned it on federal devices and on Friday approved legislation that could lead to the ban.
The bill passed unanimously by the US House Energy and Commerce Committee calls for China’s ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok or face an effective US ban. Top Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, support the bill. Johnson has indicated that a full vote in the House of Representatives will take place soon.
As president, Trump attempted to ban TikTok through an executive order that called “the distribution in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China)” a threat to “national security, foreign policy and the economy of the United States.” However, the courts blocked the action after TikTok filed a lawsuit, arguing that such actions would violate freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial.
Asked whether he still believed the app posed a national security risk, Trump said Monday: “I do believe it. And we need to be very focused on privacy and making sure that we protect the privacy and data rights of the American people.”
“But,” he continued, “you also have that problem with Facebook and with many other companies.” Some American companies, he said, are “not so American.” They trade in China. And if China wants something from them, they will give it. So that is also a national security risk.”
Biden in 2022 banned the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security investigations.
He also recently signed an executive order allowing the Justice Department and other federal agencies to take steps to prevent the large-scale transfer of Americans’ personal data to what the White House calls “countries of concern,” including China.
Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok owner ByteDance could share user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with China’s authoritarian government. TikTok said it has never done that and wouldn’t do it if asked. The US government has also provided no evidence that this is happening.
Trump had first expressed support for the app last week in a post on his Truth Social site. “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their revenue. I don’t want Facebook, which cheated in the last election, to do better,” he wrote. “They are a real enemy of the people!”
Trump said in the interview that he had not discussed the company with Jeff Yass, a TikTok investor and major GOP donor. Trump said the two had recently met “very briefly” but that Yass “never mentioned TikTok.”
Trump also confirmed that he met last week with Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who has increasingly aligned himself with conservative politics. Trump said he did not know whether Musk would ultimately support his campaign, noting that they have “obviously opposing views on a little issue called electric cars,” which Trump has spoken out against.