SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President-elect Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to delay a law that would otherwise ban TikTok next month. It is an unusual request from the president-in-waiting. Right now, the law is set to shut down the app or force its sale just before Trump's inauguration. NPR's Bobby Allyn joins us. Bobby, thanks for being with us.
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: Thanks, Scott.
SIMON: What is Donald Trump asking the Supreme Court to do?
ALLYN: Yeah, as you mentioned, Trump is urging the court to pause the start date of a law that would shut down TikTok nationwide unless it is sold away from its China-based parent company. And in the filing, Trump says he possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise to broker a sale of the app.
SIMON: How might this affect the Supreme Court's review of TikTok?
ALLYN: You know, that's really hard to say. In two weeks, lawyers for TikTok and the Department of Justice will be arguing in front of the Supreme Court over whether banning TikTok violates the Constitution or not. The date had been set earlier this month. Now, Trump's new brief does not take a position on the constitutionality of the TikTok ban but does essentially say, well, Supreme Court, if you want to hold off on making a ruling, Trump will step in, strike a deal that might make the High Court's intervention unnecessary completely. And I talked to legal scholars about this request, and they said Trump seems to be acting as if he is president before he is even sworn in. Experts also noted to me that Trump is citing no legal authority for this request.
SIMON: Bobby, this case has been gathering steam for a number of years. How did it come to this?
ALLYN: Yeah, it really has. You know, since TikTok became a global sensation during the pandemic, Washington has been very worried about the company's ties to China. And those fears really escalated in April when Congress passed a law banning TikTok unless it sheds its Beijing parent company, ByteDance. And TikTok has been fighting this law. It lost in a lower court and appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case on this lightning-fast schedule. But looming over the legal saga has been President-elect Donald Trump. Remember, he started the TikTok ban movement during his first term, and now, he is the very one promising to save the app.
SIMON: And any indication of why he changed his mind?
ALLYN: Yeah. You know, Trump had an active TikTok account during his presidential campaign, and he has credited the app with helping drive young people to the polls. So that's what he's saying publicly about why he now supports the app. But TikTok observers have also pointed to influential donors who are in touch with Trump's orbit and who are big investors in ByteDance. They include Jeff Yass, whose investment firm, Susquehanna Investment Group (ph), has a large stake in ByteDance. Yass has never donated directly to the Trump campaign, but he was a major donor to conservative super PACs this past election. And then there's Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank, which also has a significant investment in TikTok's owner. And Son has promised Trump that SoftBank will invest $100 billion in the U.S.
SIMON: Bobby, how might this affect the millions of Americans who use the app each and every day?
ALLYN: Yeah. You know, at this point, Scott, it's really hard to imagine any situation where TikTok is shut down. Even if the Supreme Court comes back and says the ban law is completely legal, it will then be up to the incoming Trump administration to enforce it. And Trump can instruct his Justice Department to just take a hands-off approach and then try to work out a deal where TikTok is purchased away from its Chinese parent company, thus satisfying the law. So we don't know for sure, but for all the TikTokers out there who use the app every day, I think it's fair to say it's unlikely it will be disappearing anytime soon.
SIMON: NPR's technology correspondent, Bobby Allyn. Thanks so much.
ALLYN: Thanks much, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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