Fox Wants to Know if Donald Trump Is Serious About Reversing TikTok Ban
Long a critic of the Chinese-owned platform, the Republican president-elect recently said, “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok.”
Fox & Friends have pressed Donald Trump’s attorney over whether the Republican president-elect has plans to undo efforts by the Biden administration to see TikTok either banned or sold off.
“So TikTok, I know the president loves it as a platform, but as a Chinese propaganda device, it’s pretty strong,” host Brian Kilmeade told Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba on Thursday evening.
He then asked, ‘Do we want TikTok run by China to have this type of power?”
Habba quickly replied, “Listen, there’s nobody that appreciates fake news or the value of real American voices more than President Trump because he’s been a victim of the fake news.”
“But with TikTok, it’s interesting,” she went on. “Do we or does anybody disagree that we cannot have a platform with national security issues? Absolutely not. Does that mean that it’s not fixable? I don’t think so. And I think that the right person for that job is President Trump.”
Habba then turned to efforts by the Biden administration to forge ahead with measures that would effectively see the Chinese-owned platform banned in the U.S. if its parent company does not sell it off before late January of next year.
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“Unfortunately, Joe Biden is trying to get rid of it very quickly so that President Trump cannot save a platform that is widely used,” she said. “However, it has to comply with American security standards. It can’t be a national security threat.”
She went on, “President Trump understands all of that. And he will examine it. He will be in communications with these people, unlike Joe Biden, and try and resolve the issue in a way that works for Americans.”
Thursday’s exchange on Fox & Friends came after Trump had shared his view of the platform at a press conference on Monday.
He told reporters then, “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok. Because I won youth by 34 points, there are those that say that TikTok had something to do with that. TikTok had an impact. And so we’re taking a look at it. We won youth.”
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