Mike Waltz: Trump Team Is Confident About Keeping TikTok While Protecting Americans
The incoming national security adviser said Trump’s looking for a deal that would save the app and ‘protect Americans’ data and protect them from influence.’
The incoming national security adviser said Trump’s looking for a deal that would save the app and ‘protect Americans’ data and protect them from influence.’
The incoming administration is confident it can keep TikTok running in the United States while protecting America’s national security, according to Mike Waltz, President-elect Donald Trump’s appointee for national security adviser.
Waltz said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that options to get the social media app back online range from “an outright sale” to “some mechanism of firewalls to make sure that the data is protected here on U.S. soil.”
TikTok’s fate in the United States is hanging in the balance since a ban on the app came into effect on Sunday, the day before the inauguration of Trump, who previously tried to ban the app but is now trying to save it.
Under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, TikTok has been banned in the United States because its ultimate owner, ByteDance Ltd., is subject to the control of the Chinese communist regime, a foreign adversary of the United States, and has not divested from California-based TikTok Inc. before the deadline.
TikTok and some of its users have tried to challenge the law, arguing it violates the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law on Friday.
The ban did not violate the petitioners’ First Amendment rights because while the app “offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community, Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,” the judgment states.
The Biden administration has said it’s up to the incoming Trump administration to implement the law, and it did not clarify whether it’s enforcing the law on Sunday.
TikTok has gone dark as of Sunday. Google and Apple also removed the app from their app stores in accordance with the law.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he will issue an executive order on Monday to delay the ban, asking “companies not to let TikTok stay dark.”
TikTok then thanked Trump for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance” in a statement posted on X and began restoring service.
Waltz told CNN that Trump needs “optionality” so he can “evaluate deals that are in accordance with the law but also protect our national security.”
The team is working with “various tech companies” to get TikTok back online and buy Trump more time to save the app, Waltz said, while promising any deal would also protect America from data transfer as well as “any type of foreign interference.”
“We’re confident that we can save Tiktok, but also protect Americans’ data and protect them from influence, whether that’s an outright sale, whether that’s some mechanism of firewalls to make sure that the data is protected here on U.S. soil—that’s what the president will be evaluating,” he said, denying that the move is capitulating to China. TikTok, a spinoff of Chinese social media platform Douyin, uses a powerful proprietary algorithm to recommend videos and create personalized content feeds.
Since the app was launched in the United States in 2017, it has become immensely popular among youth, amassing more than 170 million users in the country and over a billion worldwide.
However, security experts, politicians, and government agencies have long warned that the Chinese regime can access the vast amount of data collected by TikTok, and use the app’s algorithm to shape U.S. culture and public opinion.
In a report published in December 2023 by Rutgers University, researchers compared hashtag ratios on Instagram and TikTok across six topics that are “sensitive” to the Chinese regime, including Uyghurs, Tiananmen Square, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South China Sea, and three geopolitical topics. They concluded that “whether content is promoted or muted on TikTok appears to depend on whether it is aligned or opposed to the interests of the Chinese Government.”
In a court document filed in July, the Department of Justice said TikTok and China-based ByteDance had used a tool called “Lark” to collect user information based on their “content or expressions, including views on gun control, abortion, and religion.”
The filing also said Lark contained another tool that could trigger the “suppression of content” on TikTok based on the use of certain words.
“Although this tool contained certain policies that only applied to users based in China, [other] such policies may have been used to apply to TikTok users outside of China,” the DOJ’s filing reads.
In August 2020, then-President Trump issued an executive order to ban transactions with ByteDance and its subsidiaries, citing national security risks. The order was blocked by federal courts.
Around the same time, he also ordered ByteDance to divest its U.S. assets in 90 days. A court held the case in abeyance in February 2021 so the Biden administration could review the matter and work with TikTok to reach a deal that doesn’t require divestment. A deal was never reached.
However, Trump’s stance on the ban has since changed.
Last year, presidential candidate Trump reaffirmed his belief that TikTok posed a threat to U.S. national security, and voiced concern that an outright ban would benefit the company’s rivals including Facebook.
In December, the president-elect told reporters he had a “warm spot” for the app, which he said helped him gain support among young voters.
Trump said in his post on Sunday that he would like the United States to have a 50 percent ownership position in a joint venture, so that “we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to [stay] up.”
The Epoch Times has contacted TikTok and ByteDance for comment.
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