Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is pressing for the TikTok ban to be delayed to give an American buyer time to scoop it up.
“We aren’t against TikTok. We want TikTok to keep going. But we are against a Chinese company that is in cahoots with the Chinese Communist Party owning TikTok,” Schumer said during floor remarks Thursday.
“Unfortunately, TikTok as it exists today has too many security risks that cannot be ignored. The law passed last year was intended to sever TikTok from the influence of the CCP while keeping the app available for Americans,” he added.
“It’s clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, of so many influencers who have built up a good network of followers.”
TikTok plans to shut U.S. operations of its social media app used by 170 million Americans on Sunday, when a federal ban is set to take effect, barring a last-minute reprieve, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
But the Biden administration said it will not enforce the ban, opting to let the Trump administration deal with it once the president-elect takes office the next day, ABC News reported Thursday.
President-elect Donald Trump, whose term begins a day after a ban would start, is considering issuing an executive order to suspend enforcement of a shutdown for 60 to 90 days. The report did not say how Trump could legally do so.
The law signed in April mandates a ban on new TikTok downloads on Apple or Google app stores if Chinese parent ByteDance fails to divest the site.