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Two US Senators are trying to get President Joe Biden to extend ByteDance's deadline to sell off or divest from TikTok by Jan. 19. They want to see the deadline moved by 90 days, to Apr. 19.
Senators are divided on the issue regardless of their political affiliations. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) are advocating for the extension.
"The stakes here are high: As a practical matter, even if the Court rules that the law is constitutional by the January deadline, ByteDance cannot divest TikTok in that limited time," Markey and Paul write in their letter to Biden. "Consequently, absent a judicial injunction, decision overturning the law, or action by you, TikTok will soon be banned in the United States, causing its creators and users serious hardship."
The current Jan. 19 deadline is just a day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump initially tried to get TikTok banned back in 2020, but has since seemingly reversed his stance on the matter, claiming he will "save TikTok."
If the issue is delayed, Trump would be the president in power and could get the ban canned. He could try to ask Congress to reverse the ban, influence the Supreme Court, help TikTok find a US buyer, or try to stop the Justice Department from enforcing the ban.
But a number of Trump's allies support a TikTok ban, like Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Trump's pick for CIA director John Ratcliffe, and his pick for FCC chair Brendan Carr, suggesting Trump could be swayed back to his original position. Carr has dubbed TikTok a "foreign influencer campaign," and Ratcliffe has previously called the app a "national security threat."
TikTok continues to fight this looming ban, however. The Supreme Court this week announced it will hear arguments on the issue, and TikTok is expected to present its defense on Jan. 10 against a US ban. Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) filed a brief this week claiming TikTok is "under the control of the Chinese Communist Party" (which TikTok denies) and urging the Supreme Court to deny hearing TikTok's petition.
"We're pleased with today's Supreme Court order," TikTok said in a statement on Wednesday. "We believe the Court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights."
But the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, which is pushing for the ban, has already told Apple and Google to get ready to pull TikTok from their respective app stores. Previous reports have suggested TikTok owner ByteDance would rather shut down the app in the US than sell it off.