Trump on TikTok: ‘We’re gonna watch the security concerns’ and keep extending deadline until ‘things work out’

AP Photo/Evan VucciPresident Donald Trump is calling national security and privacy concerns related to TikTok and its Chinese parent company “highly overrated” and said Friday he’ll keep extending the deadline for the -sharing platform until there’s a buyer

Congress apved a U.S. ban on TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake

But Trump has so far ext the deadline three times during his second term — with the next one coming up on Sept. 17. “We’re gonna watch the security concerns,” Trump told reporters, but added, “We have buyers, American-buyers,” and “until the complexity of things work out, we just extend a little bit longer.” The first extension was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — apved by Congress and upheld by the U.S

Supreme Court — took effect

The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out ing Trump’s tariff announcement

His s the White House starting a TikTok account this week. “I used TikTok in the campaign,” Trump said. “I’m a fan of TikTok,” he said. “My kids TikTok

Young people love TikTok

If we could keep it going.” As the extensions continue, it appears less and less ly that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon

The decision to keep TikTok a through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but the administration has not faced a legal challenge in court — un many of Trump’s other executive orders

Americans are even more closely divided on what to do TikTok than they were two years ago

A recent Pew Re Center survey found that one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023

Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure

Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report

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