Topline
Former President Donald Trump doubled down on his criticism of President Joe Biden over a proposed ban on social media app TikTok, claiming Biden supports the ban to “help his friends over at Facebook become richer and more dominant,” after a major Trump-aligned super PAC joined the app in an apparent bid to sway younger voters ahead of the November election.
Former President Donald Trump claimed a ban on TikTok would be a major boost to Facebook—a platform ... [+]
Key Facts
Trump claimed Biden “is responsible for banning TikTok” in a post on Truth Social, arguing Biden is “the one pushing it to close,” seeming to reference Biden’s signing of a foreign aid package last month that required TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to sell the platform or face a ban in the U.S.
In his post, Trump argued Biden also supports the potential ban to help Facebook be “able to continue to fight, perhaps, illegally, the Republican Party.”
Trump had in recent weeks blamed Biden for the potential ban, arguing it would provide a jolt to Facebook, which Trump has bashed ad nauseam for removing right-wing misinformation, booting his account after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and allegedly donating $500 million to Democrats (a misleading claim as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife actually donated to nonprofits aimed at helping states and municipalities run elections during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Associated Press reported).
In March, as the bill imposing a potential ban on the app generated bipartisan support in Congress, Trump claimed TikTok is “less of a danger” to the U.S. than Facebook and its parent company, Meta, blasting Meta as the “enemy of the people.”
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News Peg
The Make America Great Again super PAC joined the popular video-based app Wednesday, posting a debut video slamming Biden’s handling of the economy. For Trump, the PAC’s embrace of the app marks a political 180 from his time in the Oval Office, when he unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok.
Tangent
Biden’s campaign also joined the app in February and vowed to stay on the app even as the Biden administration expressed national security concerns. “When the stakes are this high in the election, we are going to use every tool we have to reach young voters where they are,” the Biden campaign told Forbes.
Key Background
Biden signed a $95 billion foreign aid package for Israel, Taiwan and Ukraine last month, a key piece of legislation that also requires ByteDance to sell TikTok or the app will be banned in the U.S. The bill, which had bipartisan support, followed months of bipartisan criticism over the app’s alleged ties to the Chinese government and the security of U.S. user data. Under the provision of the law, ByteDance has nine months to find a buyer for the app, with the potential for a three-month extension if negotiations are in the works. TikTok filed a lawsuit this week seeking to challenge the potential ban, claiming the law amounted to a potential First Amendment violation by removing roughly 170 million Americans from the app, and calling a sale in nine months “simply not possible.”
Big Number
0.7% That’s how much Trump leads Biden in FiveThirtyEight’s latest weighted polling average, with 41.4% of voters supporting Trump, over 40.7% for Biden. Critically for Trump, Biden is falling behind in multiple swing states, and analysts believe independent longshot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could take votes from Biden in those states. A Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll conducted late last month found Trump leading in six of seven key swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), with Biden holding a narrow lead in one swing state: Michigan.
