TOK TAKEDOWN

TikTokers Troll Trump’s Return to Platform

The president hadn’t engaged TikTok’s young audience on the platform since the election.

Donald Trump was greeted with a chorus of ridicule upon his return to TikTok as he claimed to have “saved” the platform. The president sat low behind the Resolute Desk in his first post since the 2024 election season, triumphantly captioned, “I SAVED TIKTOK.” “To all of those young people of TikTok, I saved TikTok, so you owe me big,” he said in the post Monday. “And now you’re looking at me in the Oval Office, and one day some of you are going to be sitting right at this desk, and you’re gonna be doing a great job also.” Comments were quick to respond, with one writing, “[Where] are the Epstein files[?]” Another added, “Epstein files must be crazy.” A third wrote, “Anything but the files.” There was also a picture of Trump standing next to the disgraced financier and a series of memes asking where the so-called Epstein Files were. Epstein died by suicide in 2019 following his arrest. Portions of the FBI’s investigative files on the Epstein case have been released to the public. Still, many Americans, including sections of Trump’s base, have been left frustrated that more hasn’t been publicized. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s crimes. In September, Trump signed an executive order to separate TikTok from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. The order allows U.S. shareholders to buy up to 80 percent of the company.