Time is running out for TikTok

TikTok’s days may be numbered in America after all. 

Following a presidential campaign in which both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris promoted themselves heavily on the platform, despite bipartisan national security concerns over its ownership’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party, a federal appeals court today ruled that the app must break ties with the Beijing-based ByteDance within a few weeks or be banned in the United States.

Until the decision, everything was looking up for TikTok. Trump trounced Harris on the platform, and his campaign and top surrogates were active all over the popular social media app. While Trump wanted to ban the platform during his first term, he pivoted to wanting to “save” the app in his second term as ByteDance investor and GOP mega-donor Jeff Yass lobbied against the idea. 

Despite the bipartisan bill that would force ByteDance to divest from TikTok, the platform’s foes have been quieter in recent months — and TikTok itself is no longer rallying its child army that threatened to murder lawmakers or commit suicide en masse if the app were banned.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stepped in the fight Friday, ruling that TikTok’s First Amendment claims were insufficient to avoid the ban. “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote in the decision. “Here the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.”

TikTok isn’t the only social media company to come under scrutiny in recent years, but its ties to the CCP, which has banned the platform in mainland China, make it stand out — and only in negative ways. 

Virginia’s attorney general, Jason Miyares, who led a multi-state effort against TikTok, was among the many who hailed the ruling. “This decision protects Americans from the CCP accessing and exploiting their data,” he wrote.

TikTok is also under fire for allegedly allowing foreign actors to meddle in Romania’s elections. Some members of Congress who were originally skeptical of banning the app allegedly changed their minds after attending classified briefings about the security threat it faces to the US, but details of these national security concerns have not been made available to the general public. 

TikTok will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

-Matthew Foldi

On our radar

PAUL OUT Longtime opinion columnist for the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman, is retiring from the paper after twenty-five years on staff. Fellow opinion columnist Ezra Klein called Krugman a “beacon of clear, moral and inventive analysis for decades now.” He will write a final column before leaving the Gray Lady at the end of the year. 

IN THE NAVY A federal judge upheld affirmative action in admissions at the US Naval Academy, excluding military academies from last year’s Supreme Court ruling that overhauled racial preferences in the college admissions process. The case was brought by Students for Fair Admissions, the same organization that successfully sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina. 

‘CANCEL ME’ Embattled New York City mayor Eric Adams demurred when asked if he would consider switching his party registration from Democrat to Republican as members of his party have complained about his stance on illegal migration and his desire to work with Trump on deportations. “My focus is the American people and the people of New York City. And those who don’t like it, they will cancel me. And I say: cancel me. I’m for America,” Adams said. 

Capitol bathroom goes bananas 

The debate over congressional bathrooms hit the head on Thursday as a group of transgender activists held a dance party in a women’s restroom on Capitol Hill in protest of Speaker Mike Johnson’s new rule requiring lawmakers to use bathrooms consistent with their sex at birth. Activists held signs like “Flush bathroom bigotry” and “Congress stop pissing on our rights.” Is going into the women’s bathroom with a camera the best way to prove you pose no threat to women’s private spaces? I’d guess not.

The debate over bathrooms on Capitol Hill ignited after Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace raised concerns about biological men using her restroom as Sarah McBride became the first transgender person to serve in Congress. McBride said they would comply with Johnson’s rules for the new Congress, but activists supporting McBride’s cause clearly did not get that memo or, at least, didn’t let it deter them from twerking in the ladies room. 

–Amber Duke

Hogg wild 

David Hogg, the twenty-four-year-old X-happy gun control activist, is considering a bid to become one of the highest-ranking Democrats in America — and some Republicans are eagerly endorsing his efforts.

“I’m considering [a run for DNC vice chairman] because I think that, one, obviously, I think we need a new generation in the DNC,” Hogg told CNN. “If this election has taught us nothing else, I think we need an intergenerational coalition as a party.”

Hogg, whose qualifications for the job mostly amount to his viral social media following and scattershot activism, immediately received a tongue-in-cheek endorsement by some Republicans, like Alex Bruesewitz, one of President Donald Trump’s ever-present social media surrogates.

“[Hogg] has my complete and total endorsement!” Bruesewitz wrote. “Democrats, please keep listening to him!” Joining him was John Ashbrook, one of the cohosts of the Ruthless Podcast, who wrote that “Hogg has the full and total endorsement of the Ruthless Podcast as the next [vice chair] of the DNC.”

It’s unclear how Hogg’s GOP backers will play in his race, where only Democrats can actually vote.

–Cockburn