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Trump Claims He Has Total Authority to Ban TikTok From U.S.

The president says all he has to do is issue an executive order to ban the popular app, though such a move would be nearly impossible under U.S. law.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One late Friday that he plans to ban the short-form video app TikTok from use in the United States. While such a blanket ban would be nearly impossible under U.S. law, the president boasted of having absolute authority to abolish the app simply by issuing an executive order. “As far as TikTok is concerned, we're banning them from the United States...Well, I have that authority. I can do it with an executive order or that,” Trump said Friday, according to the White House pool report. Microsoft has been in talks with TikTok’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance about acquiring the fast-growing app, according to multiple reports, a prospect Trump said he would not support. The acquisition of the app Musical.ly, which became TikTok, has been under national security review since late 2019, and TikTok itself is the subject of scrutiny and lawsuits over its data privacy practices.