Some of President Donald Trump's strongest supporters have found themselves disagreeing with him on the issue of TikTok.
Trump, during his first day in office Monday, signed an executive order to delay enforcing a federal ban of TikTok for 75 days. However, the law took effect Sunday, and it's unclear whether the president's move could override it, The New York Times reported.
The law went into effect after TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance failed to divest from the app. The only workaround provided by the law is a 90-day extension if a likely buyer is found.
TikTok briefly went dark for U.S. users over the weekend but returned Sunday after Trump's social media announcement that he was planning an executive order.
Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., spoke out against Trump's TikTok "extension" plan on Sunday.
"We commend Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft for following the law and halting operations with ByteDance and TikTok, and we encourage other companies to do the same," Cotton and Ricketts wrote in a statement.
"The law, after all, risks ruinous bankruptcy for any company who violates it."
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., also questioned the legality of an executive order affecting TikTok.
"I'm not sure what the legal authority is for a president to issue an executive order down to a law that was just passed and upheld by the Supreme Court of United States," Cramer told CNN's Manu Raju, according to a post on X.
Also on Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that his understanding was that Trump intended to bring the app back via a sale not as it operates now.
"When President Trump issued the Truth [Social] post and said, 'Save Tiktok,' the way we read that is that he's going to try to force along a true divestiture, changing of hands, the ownership," Johnson said on NBC News' "Meet the Press."
"It's not the platform that members of Congress are concerned about. It's the Chinese Communist Party and their manipulation of the algorithms — they have been flooding the minds of American children with terrible messages glorifying violence and antisemitism and even suicide and eating disorders. I mean, crazy kinds of stuff, and they're mining the data of American citizens. It's a very dangerous thing."
Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., deferred judgment to Trump, who he said was "the right man to make the deal of the century and create a safer TikTok."
"The time is now for ByteDance to come to the table, and if they do, I'm confident that President Trump will ensure TikTok is sold to a company the American people can trust," Moolenaar said, The Hill reported.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.