President-elect Donald Trump argued in an amicus brief on Friday that he should have the authority to decide whether TikTok can continue operating in the United States, citing the unique national security and First Amendment issues involved in the case.
The brief, filed as “supporting neither party,” comes just weeks ahead of the Supreme Court’s scheduled oral arguments on January 10, 2025. The case concerns a law mandating the divestment of TikTok from foreign adversary control.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a company based in Beijing and connected to the Chinese Communist Party, Fox News reported on Friday.
“Today, President Donald J. Trump has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to extend the deadline that would cause TikTok’s imminent shutdown, and allow President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue in a way that saves TikTok and preserves American national security once he resumes office as President of the United States on January 20, 2025,” Trump spokesman and incoming White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the outlet.
The amicus brief states, “President Donald J. Trump (“President Trump”) is the 45th and soon to be the 47th President of the United States of America. On January 20, 2025, President Trump will assume responsibility for the United States’ national security, foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.”
Trump further argued in his brief that “this case presents an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national-security concerns on the other.”
“As the incoming Chief Executive, President Trump has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions, and he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means,” the brief continued, according to Fox.
“President Trump also has a unique interest in the First Amendment issues raised in this case,” the brief added. “Through his historic victory on November 5, 2024, President Trump received a powerful electoral mandate from American voters to protect the free-speech rights of all Americans—including the 170 million Americans who use TikTok.”
“President Trump is uniquely situated to vindicate these interests, because ‘the President and the Vice President of the United States are the only elected officials who represent all the voters in the Nation,’” the brief continues.
The president-elect went on to argue that due to his “overarching responsibility for the United States’ national security and foreign policy— 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.”
“On September 4, 2024, President Trump posted on Truth Social, ‘FOR ALL THOSE THAT WANT TO SAVE TIK TOK IN AMERICA, VOTE TRUMP!’” the brief states.
Trump further stated that he “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking 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.”
“Indeed, President Trump’s first Term was highlighted by a series of policy triumphs achieved through historic deals, and he has a great prospect of success in this latest national security and foreign policy endeavor,” the brief says.
The brief also pointed out that the 270-day deadline imposed by the new TikTok law “expires on January 19, 2025—one day before President Trump will assume office as the 47th President of the United States.”
The legislation, signed into law earlier this spring, mandates that ByteDance sell TikTok by January 19. If ByteDance fails to comply with the deadline, Google and Apple will be prohibited from hosting TikTok in their app stores within the United States, Fox reported.
“This unfortunate timing interferes with President Trump’s ability to manage the United States’ foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights,” the brief states. “The Act imposes the timing constraint, moreover, without specifying any compelling government interest in that particular deadline.”
The incoming president’s brief also noted that the law allows for “a 90-day extension to the deadline under certain specified circumstances.”
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
