Trump asks Supreme Court to pause TikTok ban, while Biden admin says app poses ‘grave’ threat

By John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump urged the Supreme Court to pause a controversial ban on TikTok that is set to take effect next month, telling the justices in a legal filing Friday that a delay would allow his administration to “pursue a negotiated resolution.”

Trump’s request for a delay in implementing the ban puts him at odds with the Biden administration, which defended the law in its own brief Friday, warning of “grave” national security concerns about TikTok’s continued operation in the US.

In one of the most significant pending cases before the Supreme Court, the justices must weigh whether the TikTok ban Congress approved in April violates the First Amendment. The court has already scheduled two hours of oral argument in the case for January 10.

The court was flooded with roughly two dozen briefs Friday from groups and officials who have landed on both sides of that question. Trump is technically not a party in the case —he filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief, as did several outside groups, members of Congress and others who wanted to offer their perspective.

But given that the ban is set to take effect January 19, a day before his inauguration, Trump’s position may carry significant weight with the justices.

Trump eyes negotiations

In his brief, Trump technically took no position on the underlying First Amendment questions posed by the case, but he urged the court to delay the January 19 effective date so that his administration could look for a way to resolve the issue without a ban.

Trump suggested the court pause the ban’s effective date “to allow his incoming administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.”

The incoming president has sent mixed signals in the past about his views on TikTok but most recently vowed to “save” the platform. Trump met with TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew earlier this month, CNN previously reported.

Chew also spoke with Trump on Friday evening after the incoming president asked the high court to pause the ban, two people familiar with the matter told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

Congress passed the ban with bipartisan support in response to years of concern that TikTok’s Chinese parent company poses a national security risk because, as the Biden administration warned in its own brief Friday, it can both collect data on users and manipulate the content those users see.

The law allows the app to continue in the US if it divests from Chinese ownership. The law gives the sitting president broad power to decide whether the company has adequately split from its owners.

Trump’s brief, his first to the Supreme Court since winning the election, claimed he is operating with a “powerful electoral mandate” and that he is uniquely positioned to resolve the TikTok controversy. At one point he described himself as “one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history.”

“The First Amendment implications of the federal government’s effective shuttering of a social-media platform used by 170 million Americans are sweeping and troubling,” Trump’s brief stated. “There are valid concerns that the act may set a dangerous global precedent by exercising the extraordinary power to shut down an entire social-media platform based, in large part, on concerns about disfavored speech on that platform.”

Biden and ex-Trump officials back ban

Earlier Friday, President Joe Biden’s administration and a bipartisan group of ex-government officials — including some who once worked for Trump — urged the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on TikTok, claiming that the platform’s ties to China pose a “grave” threat to American security.

“TikTok collects vast swaths of data about tens of millions of Americans,” the administration told the Supreme Court on Friday. And, it said, China “could covertly manipulate the platform to advance its geopolitical interests and harm the United States — by, for example, sowing discord and disinformation during a crisis.”

The written arguments submitted to the Supreme Court on Friday underscore a tension between national security and free speech at a time when 170 million Americans use TikTok for news and entertainment.

Trump acknowledged in his brief Friday that his administration had also raised concerns about the platform and had signed an executive order limiting the app. When Trump was president in 2020, he signed an executive order to effectively ban TikTok, but it was halted in the courts.

But, he argued Friday, the “unfortunate timing” of the law’s effective date “interferes” with his ability to “manage the United States’ foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights.”

Delaying the law’s effective date, Trump said, could “obviate the need for this court to decide the historically challenging First Amendment question.”

Among the former Trump officials who filed legal briefs Friday supporting the Biden administration’s position and the TikTok ban were Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general, and Ajit Pai, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 2017 to 2021.

The most notable ex-Trump ally backing the Biden administration is former Vice President Mike Pence.

Advancing American Freedom, a political advocacy group launched by Trump’s first-term vice president in 2021, signed on to a brief describing TikTok as “digital fentanyl” and a “technological weapon.”

“The First Amendment is not, and should not be read as, a means of granting the Chinese government the power to do what the American government could not: manipulate what Americans can say and hear,” the group told the Supreme Court.

TikTok: Ban violates First Amendment

TikTok told the court in its own brief Friday that the federal government is attempting to shut down “one of the most significant speech platforms in America” and said that lawmakers were required by the First Amendment to consider other options, such as disclosures about the company’s ownership.

“History and precedent teach that, even when national security is at stake, speech bans must be Congress’s last resort,” the company said.

Groups advocating for First Amendment protections — including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University — urged the Supreme Court to look beyond the government’s national security claims and assess the ban’s impact on Americans’ freedom to view whatever online content they choose.

“Restricting access to foreign media to protect against purported foreign manipulation is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes,” the Knight First Amendment Institute wrote. “The government has no legitimate interest in banning Americans from accessing foreign speech — even if the speech comprises foreign propaganda or reflects foreign manipulation.”

The ACLU, similarly, warned of a “far reaching disruption in Americans’ ability to engage with the content and audiences of their choice online” if the Supreme Court upholds the ban.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, unanimously upheld the ban in a ruling that said the government had a national security interest in regulating the platform.

The quick-turn timing of the briefing reflected the highly unusual speed with which the Supreme Court agreed to consider the case. The court plucked the appeal off its emergency docket — where TikTok was seeking a temporary pause of the ban — and agreed to delve into the substantive First Amendment questions about the law.

Trump’s brief was filed by D. John Sauer, whom Trump has said he intends to nominate as solicitor general and who, if confirmed, would represent the Trump administration at the Supreme Court.

“There are compelling reasons to stay the act’s deadline,” Sauer argued, “and allow President Trump to seek a negotiated resolution once in office.”

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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