GOP China Hawks Remain Silent as Trump Grants TikTok a Reprieve
The Capitol Hill Republicans who pushed aggressively to ban TikTok have gone almost totally silent on President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision not to enforce the ban.
Trump’s Executive Order Defies Congress
Asked directly by POLITICO about Trump’s executive order to grant TikTok a reprieve in defiance of the law passed by Congress, Senate Majority Leader John Thune — who supported the ban and once pushed his own bill to crack down on the app — appeared willing to let Trump’s order stand for now.
“The law is the law. And ultimately it’s going to have to be followed,” he said. “If it can bring around a buyer, which is what the law was designed to do, then we’ll see.”
Republican Senators’ Response
Thune and other prominent Senate Republicans were part of the overwhelming congressional majority that passed the law last year forcing Beijing-based owner ByteDance to sell the app for national security reasons. The law was upheld by the Supreme Court, and the company’s time to strike a deal ran out on Sunday. The app voluntarily went dark Saturday night before coming back the following day.
Then Trump on Monday issued an executive order directing his administration not to punish companies who help keep TikTok up for 75 days — a provision not mentioned in the law, and which many experts see as a move with no legal basis at all.
Legal Experts’ Views
“An executive order is just a press release with nicer stationery,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a former DOJ official who teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School.
With a GOP trifecta in Washington, however, any next legislative move is up to Republicans — and even the most hawkish of the party’s lawmakers seem caught out by a president simply ignoring the law they passed nine months ago.
Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a China hawk and strong proponent of the law, did not respond directly to a question on Tuesday about whether he supported Trump’s extension.
“The purpose of the statute is to force China to sell TikTok,” Cruz told POLITICO Tuesday. “And that’s what I expect will happen.”
Conclusion
Even those Republicans who acknowledged the complex legal status of TikTok said that it is unclear who has the authority to force Trump’s hand on enforcing the law after he issued an executive order telling his attorney general to stand down.
“It would be difficult to find somebody with standing that would rescind [the order],” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I voted for the bill. I did not study it. I had hoped that there was some breathing room.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said he didn’t believe the law gave Trump the power to offer a lifeline — “I don’t know that there’s actually a statutory predicate to extend enforcement by that amount of time,” he told reporters Tuesday — and suggested that challenges to the law might come from elsewhere.
