Trump Explains TikTok Flip-Flop

A bill to force TikTok's Chinese owners to sell or face a US ban passed a House committee 50-0 last week, and a vote of the full House could happen as soon as Wednesday—but Donald Trump could end up tanking it, the New York Times reports. As president, Trump tried to ban the app. In an interview with CNBC on Monday, he said that while he still considers it a national security risk, he doesn't want to make Facebook stronger.

• "Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people," Trump said.
• "Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it," he said. "There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it. There are a lot of users. There's a lot of good and there's a lot of bad with TikTok."

• Trump recently met with GOP megadonor Jeff Yass, who owns a 15% stake in TikTok's parent company ByteDance, Business Insider reports. In the Monday interview, he denied talking to Yass about TikTok.
• House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Sunday that he would try to get the bill passed quickly. "We must ensure the Chinese government cannot weaponize TikTok against American users and our government through data collection and propaganda," he said.
• "Trump's flip-flop on TikTok puts House Republicans in a very awkward position because it forces them to choose between supporting Trump or standing up to China," Democratic strategist Geoff Garin tells the Times. "Voters on both sides of the aisle do not trust China to play by any meaningful set of rules and believe that China is determined to get away with whatever it can get away with, and that would apply to China's control over TikTok."
• Politico reports that TikTok is continuing to send users alerts with instructions on how to call their representatives about the bill, though some lawmakers said last week that the campaign hardened their attitudes against the app. "If the House of Representatives vote to ban TikTok on Wednesday, the government will take away the community that you and millions of other Americans love," one alert states.

(More TikTok stories.)