Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he would “never ban TikTok,” making his firmest statement in support of the Chinese government-linked social media app that he said he would ban during his term in office.
Trump, 77, made the remark while speaking about his larger strategy to reach young voters in a conversation with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
“Well, the big message is vote for Trump. We’re going to make our country greater than ever before,” Trump said, before calling President Biden is the “worst president in history.”
Kirk then pressed Trump on whether he would ban TikTok, as the 45th president had come back to the app this past weekend in a video about his UFC 302 appearance that has now amassed 121 million views.
“I will never ban TikTok,” Trump confirmed.
Kirk, who hosted the former president for a town hall in Arizona on Thursday, captioned a TikTok video of the exchange by calling Trump “TikTok’s favorite president.”
The popular social media app has been under scrutiny for years as a national security threat, given the parent company, ByteDance, is linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
Biden signed a bill into law in April mandating ByteDance sell the app in six months or have it be banned in the US — a process that will take about nine months to come into effect.
Trump had originally been against TikTok and had issued an executive order banning it in 2020, but has reversed course since leaving office.
The change in tune came after Trump reportedly met with a major donor to his campaign, Jeffrey Yass, who has a 15% stake in ByteDance.
Trump’s TikTok praise is also a strategy to reach young people, the primary demographic using the app.
“Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok,” he wrote on Truth Social in April after Biden signed the bill into law. “He is the one pushing it to close, and doing it to help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant, and able to continue to fight, perhaps illegally, the Republican Party.”
“It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE! Young people, and lots of others, must remember this on November 5th, ELECTION DAY, when they vote! They also must remember, more importantly, that he is destroying our Country, and is A MAJOR THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!” Trump went on.
Biden’s campaign has also vowed to continue using TikTok to reach younger voters while the app is still not banned in the US.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a strong proponent of restricting the app, slammed Trump’s latest remarks in a statement to The Post Friday.
“TikTok is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and is a threat to the national security and privacy of the American people. Congress has enacted a law forcing the sale of TikTok and the next president must be prepared to uphold the law,” Pence said.
“Our national security is more important than politics, and anyone seeking the highest office in the land must be prepared to stand up to China, including ridding American soil of the CCP’s spyware.”
