President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to let him negotiate a deal to save TikTok from an imminent US ban.
In an amicus brief filed to the court, Trump says he “seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office,” and that he “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform.”
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments that a bill passed by Congress banning TikTok on national security grounds violates the First Amendment. While Trump pushed a TikTok ban during his first term, he has changed his tune after his campaign successfully used the platform during the 2024 election. He recently met with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at Mar-a-Lago and told a crowd that “maybe we gotta keep this sucker around for a little while.”
The bill that would see TikTok banned in January gives wide latitude to the president to delay its enforcement if there’s progress being made towards a deal ensuring TikTok isn’t fully controlled by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. But the deadline for that determination is January 19th, which is one day before Trump is set to assume the presidency.
In his Supreme Court filing, Trump asks for the January 19th deadline to be stayed, arguing that the deal he’d negotiate “would obviate the need for this Court to decide the historically challenging First Amendment question presented here on the current, highly expedited basis.”
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