MAGA Republicans defend TikTok as ‘conservative platform’ as fate hangs in the balance with Supreme Court

MAGA Republicans offer an outpouring of support for TikTok ahead of a threatened ban on the social media platform set to take effect later this month.

“Trump won the election because he listened to first-time voters like me and joined TikTok to bring his message directly to us,” RNC Youth Advisory Council Chairwoman Brilyn Hollyhand told Fox News Digital about the upcoming ban. “He didn’t need paid influencers or cringey trends like his failed opponent. All he had to do was go where Gen Z was, TikTok, and pitch his plan.”

Representatives of TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, will present arguments before the US Supreme Court on Friday to ask the nation’s highest court to delay a ban on the app that was set to take effect the day before the inauguration. . President Biden signed the bill into law a law went into effect in April that gave TikTok’s parent company until January 19 to sell it or face a US ban.

If the Supreme Court does not suspend the ban, US TikTok users will no longer be able to download the app, and internet service providers will be barred from allowing access to the site.

WILL THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SAVE TIKTOK FROM THE THREATENING BAN? THE PRESIDENT-ELECT HAS DONE A 180 ON THE APPLICATION

The threatened ban stemmed from concerns that US users’ data was being collected by the Chinese government, but MAGA Republicans and content creators who spoke to Fox Digital dismissed the reasoning as disingenuous.

“I’ve done, if not, dived as deep as possible into all issues related to the platform, especially for my daily show when I share my thoughts and commentary on what’s going on in culture and politics,” TikTok creator and TPUSA commentator Isabel Brown, who there are more than 500,000 followers on TikTokhe told Fox Digital in a phone interview. “We’re facing this potential platform ban for at least nine months to a year … the complaints I’m hearing, especially from politicians, are mostly focused on national security.”

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“But it’s very hard for me to believe that it’s true the argument for censoring TikTok is based on in national security concerns while we still have documented evidence of almost every single American social media company. Meta, Twitter, YouTube, etc., selling your information under the table to their own government and/or the Chinese Communist Party, and even the Russian government.”

“Hell, we even have records of Airbnb selling US data to the Chinese Communist Party. So there doesn’t seem to be much will to truly massively protect the cyber and personal information security of US citizens from the government, it seems to be just focused on TikTok as a platform itself,Brown continued.

DIVESTMENT OF TIKTOK COULD BE THE ‘DEAL OF THE CENTURY’ FOR TRUMP, SAYS HOUSE CHINA COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN

President-elect Donald Trump’s praise for TikTok comes after the former and incoming president made big inroads with Generation Z, particularly young male voters, last cycle. A Fox News poll of voters released after the election found that men aged 18-44 supported Trump at 53% compared to Vice President Kamala Harris at 45%.

“​​We’re talking about an app that nearly 200 million Americans, 75% of whom belong to Generation Z, use every day as our primary source of news and, according to some studies, even as our primary web browser search tool, so more than Google … and I’ve found that the opportunity for virality—to talk to as many people as possible—on Tiktok is unmatched by any other social media platform,” Brown said.

A Republican strategist told Fox News Digital that TikTok is, for all intents and purposes, a “conservative platform.”

“In any case, TikTok is now a conservative platform – if you look at how Trump has dominated his competition, there’s no argument against the value this platform has and I don’t think there’s a world where Trump doesn’t deliver on his promise to save him,” the strategist said. .

A GOP insider added that “the fact that [Sen. Mitch] McConnell and [former Vice President Mike] Pence wants to ban this thing means it needs to be saved.”

On the eve of the new year, Senator Mitch McConnell filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to deny ByteDance’s request for a stay of the ban.

“The preposterous notion that TikTok has an eminent domain right to enable the CCP’s censorship regime is absurd,” McConnell’s attorney, Michael A. Fragoso, wrote in a friendly court filing. “Should Congress allow Nikita Khrushchev to buy CBS and replace The Bing Crosby Show with Alexander Nevsky?”

While former Vice President Mike Pence’s nonprofit, Advancing American Freedom, filed a similar amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court last month.

“The CCP does not respect free speech, neither in China nor in America. The First Amendment is not, and should not be read as, a means of giving the Chinese government the power to do what the American government could not: manipulate what Americans can say and hear “, the group wrote.

Advance American Freedom President Tim Chapman told Fox News Digital that Trump’s first administration “got it right the first time” when Trump initially worked to ban TikTok before the former and future president changed his mind about the app.

“The Trump administration had this right the first time it planned to ban TikTok via executive order because of the same concerns that exist today. Political strategists drooling over clicks and followers doesn’t mean the national security implications have changed,” Chapman said.

TRUMP HAS JOINED TIKTOK, THE APPLICATION HE ONCE TRIED TO BAN AS PRESIDENT

Emily Wilson, political commentator and host of the “Emily Saves America” ​​podcast, told Fox News Digital that she sees both sides of the argument about the threatened ban on TikTok, but that imposing a ban would be “hypocritical against free speech.”

“Banning TikTok is controversial, I see two sides. I see it as an app that’s very left-wing and takes up too much of people’s time, but it’s sometimes the only place I get information about stories that should go public around the world. At the same time, it can be dangerous for young people. Loaded,” Wilson told Fox Digital.

“It seems like it’s an app that’s anti-American and brainwashing young kids. At the end of the day, if I say ban it, it’s hypocritical against free speech. I just don’t want it to harm young people,” she said. added.

DISVESTIGATION OF TIKTOK COULD BE THE ‘DEAL OF THE CENTURY’ FOR TRUMP, CHINA COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN SAYS

Trump himself has done a 180-degree turn on TikTok. Under his first administration, in 2020, Trump tried to ban the app from the US market due to national security concerns. However, his executive order was eventually blocked in federal court.

Fast forward to 2024 in the middle of the campaign cycle, and Trump has joined the app June during the campaign cycle and has since amassed nearly 15 million followers and 107 million likes as fans flock to his content on the platform. Trump also filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court last month, which did not side with either side in the case, arguing that the fate of the platform should be left to his administration.

“Today, President Donald J. Trump filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court asking the Court to extend the deadline that would have caused the immediate shutdown of TikTok and allow President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue in a way that saves TikTok and preserves US national security after January 20 2025 to take over as President of the United States,” said Trump’s spokesman and incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital last month.

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“President Donald J. Trump (‘President Trump’) is the 45th and soon to be 47th President of the United States of America,” the summary said. “On January 20, 2025, President Trump will assume responsibility for the United States’ national security, foreign policy and other vital executive functions.”

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman, Paul Steinhauser and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.