President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to temporarily halt a law that could result in a ban on TikTok, in order to give him time to negotiate a deal that will allow the app to remain in the U.S.
“President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture, and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office,” his attorneys write in a friend-of-the-court brief filed late Friday.
“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 expressed by the government,” his lawyers add.
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He is asking the court to delay the effective date of the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
The law, passed earlier this year, will prohibit app stores and websites from distributing TikTok unless it is sold by China-based parent company ByteDance by January 19 -- the day before he will return to office.
The Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments about the law's constitutionality on January 10, and issue a decision before January 19.
When Congress passed the measure, lawmakers expressed concerns that the Chinese government may be able to access data about TikTok's 170 million users, and use the app to sway public opinion.
TikTok and a group of content creators have asked the Supreme Court to strike down the law, arguing that it violates the First Amendment.
Trump -- who attempted to ban TikTok during his first presidency -- says in his friend-of-the-court brief that he isn't taking a position on “the merits of the dispute,” adding that the battle “presents a novel, difficult, and significant tension between national security concerns and the free speech interests of over 170 million ordinary Americans.”
He says the national security concerns driving the law “appear to be significant and pressing,” but argues that allowing the law to take effect “risks inadvertently setting a troubling global precedent.”
“This Court should be deeply concerned about setting a precedent that could create a slippery slope toward global government censorship of social media speech,” his lawyers write. “The power of a Western government to ban an entire social-media platform with more than 100 million users, at the very least, should be considered and exercised with the most extreme care -- not reviewed on a 'highly expedited basis.'”