House Republican leaders are expected to vote Wednesday on a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok, even as former President Trump appears to undermine efforts to restrict the app.
Fox News Digital has learned that the House of Representatives is expected to take the bill up under suspension of the rules, meaning it bypasses the usual procedural hurdles in exchange for raising the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds.
The bill passed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee in an unprecedented bipartisan 50-0 vote on Thursday.
GOP LAWMAKERS PRESS TIKTOK CEO ON ‘DELUGE OF PRO-HAMAS CONTENT’ ON PLATFORM
Republican presidential candidate and former President Trump expressed wariness about banning TikTok. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Later that same day, Trump posted on his Truth Social app, “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!”
The measure would ban TikTok from online app stores if its parent company, ByteDance, does not divest from it within 165 days. ByteDance is a Beijing-headquartered tech company that critics say is under the influence of China’s ruling communist party, a claim the company has denied.
But top U.S. officials have warned that TikTok likely gives the Chinese government access to mountains of sensitive American user data, even as the company insists guardrails are in place to prevent that.
Trump’s hesitance about a ban appears to be a shift from his earlier position as president, when he tried to block the app in the U.S. in 2020.
He said in a CNBC interview Monday morning that “there’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad” with TikTok.
House GOP leaders are aiming to put a bill on the floor Wednesday that would ban TikTok in U.S. app stores if ByteDance does not divest from it. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Trump conceded he still believes TikTok is a national security threat but added, “[Y]ou have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies, too.”
“When you talk about highly sophisticated companies that you think are American, they are not so American, they deal in China … if China wants anything from them, they will give it, so that’s a national security risk also,” Trump said.
But Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital brushed off concerns that Trump, as de facto leader of the GOP, could sway House leaders and other members away from their support of the bill.
“Trump was right about the national security problem posed by TikTok in 2020. And he’s right today that just pushing TikTok users onto Facebook isn’t the answer. That’s why our bill is the right path forward; it surgically removes CCP control and creates an opportunity to put TikTok in better hands,” one of the bill’s leaders, House China Select Committee Chair Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital.
BILL BANNING TIKTOK APP HEADED TO HOUSE AFTER UNANIMOUS COMMITTEE VOTE
Rep. Mike Gallagher (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
A senior GOP aide told Fox News Digital that a majority of lawmakers are “already convicted” on the issue of TikTok.
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“This is a security threat, and they’re going to do what they can to prevent that. They’ll argue that we’re just asking that it be purchased by [a company in a non-adversarial country], we’re actually not shutting it down. … So, I don’t think a lot of people are necessarily swayed at the moment,” the senior GOP aide said. “[Trump] has been supportive of something like this in the past. I think that people will just kind of roll with that in mind.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., two of Trump’s highest-ranking Capitol Hill allies, did not respond when asked for comment on Trump’s criticism of the bill. Both have suggested their support.
