Trump asks Supreme Court to delay TikTok sale deadline

[ad_1] Two weeks earlier than the Supreme Court docket is ready to listen to oral arguments over TikTok's future, President-elect Donald Trump has requested the justices to delay a Jan. 19 deadline for the app to be bought to a brand new proprietor or face a ban within the U.S.

An amicus temporary filed by Trump's nominee to be solicitor common, John Sauer, is asking the court docket to grant a keep delaying the deadline in order that the incoming president can work out a "negotiated decision" that will save the app.

The submitting casts Trump as somebody who "alone possesses the consummate dealmaking experience, the electoral mandate, and the political will to barter a decision to avoid wasting the platform whereas addressing the nationwide safety considerations expressed by the Authorities."

<img alt="PHOTO: This combination of pictures shows a man holding a smartphone displaying the logo of Chinese social media platform Tiktok and former President Donald Trump." class="hsDdd vBqtr KrDt itslR SjwtZ hakZw HlUVI " data-testid="prism-image" draggable="false" loading="lazy" src="https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/fb0d22f0-26c1-41e4-9c5d-0333bac12696/tiktok-gty-er-241227_1735339172032_hpMain_4x3.jpg"/> This mix of images reveals a person holding a smartphone displaying the emblem of Chinese language social media platform Tiktok and former President Donald Trump chatting with the media as he arrives for his legal trial at Manhattan Legal Court docket in New York, Might 30, 2024.

Antonin Utzseth Wenig/AFP/POOL/AFP through Getty Photos

Trump's temporary says he "opposes banning TikTok in the US at this juncture," however doesn't specific the view that the regulation requiring the sale violates the First Modification, saying he takes no place on the deserves of the case.

As a substitute, the submitting from Sauer asks the court docket to place the deadline on pause to permit Trump's incoming administration "to pursue a negotiated decision that would stop a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Modification rights of tens of hundreds of thousands of Individuals, whereas additionally addressing the federal government's nationwide safety considerations."

TikTok, which has over 170 million U.S. customers, has sued over the regulation requiring it to be bought by its present Chinese language-based proprietor ByteDance by Jan. 19 or be banned within the U.S.

A federal appeals court docket earlier this month rejected the corporate's request for an emergency pause within the deadline.

The Supreme Court docket is ready to listen to arguments within the case on Jan. 10.

President Joe Biden signed the Defending Individuals from International Adversary Managed Purposes Act, which was a part of an enormous, $95 billion overseas assist bundle handed by Congress, on April 24.

Biden and a few congressional leaders argued that the ultimatum in opposition to TikTok was crucial due to safety considerations about ByteDance and its connections to the Chinese language authorities.

Trump initially tried to ban TikTok in his first time period, however has since reversed course, vowing in the course of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign to "save" the app.

In Trump’s amicus temporary, Sauer raised the thought of social media censorship, invoking Brazil’s current month-long ban of social media platform X, the remedy of the Hunter Biden laptop computer story and authorities efforts to stamp out COVID-19 misinformation as incidents that ought to give the justices pause.

“This Court docket must be deeply involved about setting a precedent that would create a slippery slope towards world authorities censorship of social media speech,” Sauer wrote within the submitting. “The facility of a Western authorities to ban a whole social-media platform with greater than 100 million customers, on the very least, must be thought-about and exercised with probably the most excessive care—not reviewed on a ‘extremely expedited foundation.’”

Whereas Sauer acknowledged that TikTok could pose nationwide safety dangers whereas it stays beneath ByteDance’s management, he additionally urges the justices to be skeptical of nationwide safety officers, whom, he stated, “have repeatedly procured social-media censorship of disfavored content material and viewpoints by a mix of stress, coercion, and deception.”

“There's a jarring parallel between the D.C. Circuit’s near-plenary deference to nationwide safety officers calling for social-media censorship, and the current, well-documented historical past of federal officers’ in depth involvement in social-media censorship efforts directed on the speech of tens of hundreds of thousands Individuals,” Sauer wrote.