Trump vows to save TikTok as GOP hawks say Chinese app can only be revived if its sold

The clock has tick-tocked out of time, but President-elect Donald Trump is pledging to “save” the Chinese video-sharing app TikTok — despite hawks within his own party saying the site can’t be given a reprieve so easily.“Save TikTok,” Trump, 78, wrote in all caps on his Truth Social platform.Hours earlier, TikTok notified users that the platform was offline and later tweaked its message to credit the incoming president, stating “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution.”TikTok’s parent company ByteDance had nine months — a Jan.

19 deadline — to either sell the platform’s US business or be bannedThe ban overwhelmingly passed both chambers of Congress back in April and was subsequently signed into law by President Biden.Trump told NBC News that he is mulling plans to give TikTok a 90-day extension.“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at.

The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done because it’s appropriate.You know, it’s appropriate.

We have to look at it carefully.It’s a very big situation,” Trump told the outlet.However, key Republican China hawks in Congress are gloating over the ban on TikTok, and arguing that an extension is not possible.“Now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Sen.

Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) —publicly casting doubt on whether TikTok can be revived in the US.“For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified- divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China.Only then will Americans be protected from the grave threat posed to their privacy and security by a communist-controlled TikTok.”TikTok, which claims to have a user base of over 170 million in the US, has long triggered na...