President-elect Donald Trump his suggesting his new administration could permit TikTok to remain operating in the U.S. under its Chinese owners and attributing his campaign’s success with young voters to the social media platform.
"We did go on TikTok and we had a great response with billions of views,” Trump said in a speech at AmericaFest, a conference hosted by Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action.
"They brought me a chart … and as I looked at it, I said, maybe we got to keep this sucker around for a little while,” he said.
The Trump campaign signed up for the app in June and quickly garnered a 14.7 million-strong audience.
But, if Trump wants to keep the app, he will have to content with U.S. law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in April. TikTok is currently fighting that law signed that would require its China-based parent company ByteDance to divest from TikTok or face a ban of the platform in the United States.
But, Trump credits at least some of his success with young voters, particularly young men, on the decision to join the embattled app.
He previously said he had a “warm spot” in his “heart” for the social platform, per Axios.
Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in TikTok’s appeal. A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. previously ruled the U.S. government had the ability to regulate the platform over national security concerns.
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