President-elect Donald Trump urged the Supreme Court to pause a controversial ban on TikTok that is set to take effect next month, telling the justices in a legal filing Friday that a delay would allow his administration to “pursue a negotiated resolution.”
Trump’s request for a delay in implementing the ban puts him at odds with the Biden administration, which defended the law in its own brief Friday, warning of “grave” national security concerns about TikTok’s continued operation in the US.
In one of the most significant pending cases before the Supreme Court, the justices must weigh whether the TikTok ban Congress approved in April violates the First Amendment. The court has already scheduled two hours of oral argument in the case for January 10.
The court was flooded with roughly two dozen briefs Friday from groups and officials who have landed on both sides of that question. Trump is technically not a party in the case —he filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief, as did several outside groups, members of Congress and others who wanted to offer their perspective.
Trump eyes negotiations
In his brief, Trump technically took no position on the underlying First Amendment questions posed by the case, but he urged the court to delay the January 19 effective date so that his administration could look for a way to resolve the issue without a ban.
Trump suggested the court pause the ban’s effective date “to allow his incoming administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.”
