Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) suggested that President-elect Trump’s opposition a TikTok ban comes from his popularity on the app and the video-sharing platform lobby’s influence on his inner circle.
“With Donald Trump, it’s always some combination of two things, Jim. It’s one, flattery and inflating his ego,” Auchincloss told CNN guest host Jim Sciutto during his Friday appearance on CNN. “And then number two is the soft corruption and sycophancy of his inner circle. Those two threads can intertwine and they can change American policy.”
Auchincloss’s remarks came just hours after Trump asked the Supreme Court to delay the deadline for a potential ban of the app which was scheduled to occur on Jan. 19, one day before the president-elect’s inauguration.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns,” Trump’s personal appellate attorney D. John Sauer wrote.
The nation’s highest court was willing to hear TikTok’s objections to the potential ban on a fast-track schedule, although Trump’s legal team argued the legislation could be delayed until he assumes office next year and the court would not need to weigh in.
Auchincloss, who sits on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said on Friday that it would be “important” for Congress to release a resolution stating that lawmakers stand by the original bill, signed by President Biden in April, which would require ByteDance, the China-based parent company, to divest from TikTok by the January date or face a ban in the U.S.
“And then if he tried to issue an executive order that undermines the effectuating of the law, that Congress would override that as we have the right to do,” Auchincloss, said, referring to Trump. “Now, whether or not my Republican colleagues have the spines to stand up to Donald Trump remains to be seen. I would say their track record over the last decade does not inspire confidence in that regard.”
Trump opposed the law during his 2024 presidential run and has repeatedly vowed to “save TikTok,” but the president-elect has not offered precise steps to shield the app since he won the November election. During his first run in the White House, Trump threatened to ban the app.
Some lawmakers have come out against the ban, including Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
The Massachusetts Democrat, who supports the ban, said he knows that his House colleagues “on the other side of the aisle with whom I helped draft this law, understand that allowing Gen Z to develop their sense of American society from an algorithm dictated by the Politburo in Beijing is a really bad idea.”
“And Donald Trump himself understood that. And the fact that he’s changing his mind now makes me think that his inner circle has been bought and paid for by the TikTok lobby,” he added.
Former Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway is reportedly being paid by the influential Club for Growth to lobby for TikTok in Congress, as reported by Politico. Jeff Yass, a Republican mega-donor and huge backer of Club for Growth, holds a 15 percent stake in ByteDance.
