Justice Department urges Supreme Court to reject Trump's push to halt TikTok ban

The Justice Department on Friday urged the Supreme Court to reject President-elect Donald Trump's request to delay implementation of a law that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States or force its sale by its Chinese parent company by on January 19.

The latest Supreme Court filing comes after Trump's lawyer, D. John Sauer, asked the court to stay enforcement of the law beyond the deadline to give the president-elect a chance to seek a political solution to the issues at issue in the case.

The DOJ argued that Trump's filing took no position on the First Amendment issue, which is the basis of the lawsuit the Supreme Court agreed to hear on an expedited basis. TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, filed a lawsuit to try to stop enforcement of the law, arguing that it violates its free speech rights under the First Amendment.

The DOJ said granting Trump's request would amount to a temporary injunction and could only be implemented if ByteDance established a likelihood of winning the case, but the company had failed to do so.

The Justice Department also addressed ByteDance's First Amendment argument head-on in Friday's filing.

The law does not warrant increased First Amendment scrutiny because it imposes no burden on the cognizable First Amendment rights of ByteDance, its U.S. subsidiary, or TikToks users, the department's lawyers wrote.

The law satisfies any level of First Amendment scrutiny, and this Court should uphold it, they added.

If the Supreme Court does not act by January 19 or side with the US government, TikTok would be banned just one day before Trump's inauguration, something he outlined in his own court filing. end of last month.

President-elect Donald Trump is becoming increasingly vocal about his opposition to banning the social media platform. File Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

President Trump takes no position on the merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider suspending the Act's divestment deadline of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case, Sauer wrote.

Yet on his own social media platform, TruthSocial, Trump clearly opposed the TikTok ban.

On Friday morning, he wrote: Why would I want to get rid of TikTok? alongside a digital graph showing that her TikTok account received more views than the accounts of Vice President Kamala Harris, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, Fox News and pop stars Taylor Swift and Beyoncé.

NBC News has not independently verified the accuracy of this graphic.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case on January 10, just nine days before the app was banned under the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, which was passed by Congress with bipartisan support last year and was subsequently signed by President Joe Biden.

The law imposes a ban on the app only if ByteDance, a Chinese company, still owns TikTok, prompting ByteDance to sell the app to a US-based company to allow the app to continue operating here.

Nothing in the law would prevent a post-divestiture TikTok from presenting the exact same content in the exact same way. The law targets control by a foreign adversary, not protected speech, Justice Department lawyers wrote in their Friday filing.

A spokesperson for Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Alexandra Marquez

Alexandra Marquez is a political reporter for NBC News.

Jake Traylor and Daniel Barnes contributed.

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