Trump vows never to ban TikTok shortly after joining

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promised Thursday he won’t ban TikTok should he be elected.

Trump appeared on the TikTok account of Turning Point Action founder Charlie Kirk shortly after their town hall in Arizona. He decided to share a message to users in the 30-second clip, which went on to nab 1.8 million views and over 300,000 likes.

“Well, the big message is vote for Trump. We’re gonna make our country greater than ever before. We had something going. That was incredible and just horrible what’s happened. This is the worst president in history — Joe Biden,” Trump said. Then, when prompted by Kirk, he added, “I will never ban TikTok.”

Since joining the platform less than a week ago, Trump has only posted once and garnered some 5.8 million followers, far surpassing Biden‘s reelection campaign account, which has only 360,000 followers.

However, TikTok is due to be banned in U.S. app stores on Jan. 19, 2025. This pending ban is an attempt to pressure Chinese-owned ByteDance to sell the social media platform. The ban was signed into law by Biden in April.

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In the weeks following the signing of the law, TikTok filed a lawsuit alleging the ban would violate the platform’s First Amendment rights rather than sell it. That lawsuit was followed by another filed by TikTok users. Now all the parties involved are requesting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rule by Dec. 6 on the matter.

Trump, who led the original chorus of those wanting to ban the app, slammed the bill passed unanimously out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and proclaimed his disapproval. The law would allow a president to determine what nations are considered adversarial and allow for bans of their apps as well. Various members of Congress agreed with Trump’s opinion, to no avail.