ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
One of President Trump's first actions in office was to delay a ban on TikTok. That hasn't always been his position. Over the weekend, millions of TikTok users experienced a blip. For roughly 14 hours, the app was unavailable as the new law was about to take effect.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
And non-American TikTokers saw the app without the usual swarm of U.S. posts.
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UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKER: This actually feels like a ghost town. Why is no one posting? - because they're all gone. They've all been banned.
SUMMERS: But then...
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UNIDENTIFIED TIKTOKER: They're back with a vengeance. I literally posted a video about Americans. Two hours later, they were already commenting, we're back, we're back. I'm never doubting you again.
SHAPIRO: So how did we get to this moment?
SUMMERS: Well, back in 2020, the Trump administration started to push against Chinese communication apps. Here's then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo back in July of 2020.
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MIKE POMPEO: Whether it's TikTok or any of the other Chinese communications platforms, apps, infrastructure, this administration's taking seriously the requirement to protect the American people from having their information end up in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
SHAPIRO: That was followed by a flurry of executive orders from President Trump which banned transactions with the Chinese owners of TikTok and WeChat out of concern that these apps could comprise U.S. national security. Then Trump gave ByteDance 90 days to divest from it's American assets.
SUMMERS: TikTok ended up suing the U.S. government in response.
SHAPIRO: Talks of ByteDance possibly selling to American software companies fizzled out, and President Biden paused efforts to ban TikTok when he took office in 2021. But the federal government kept a close eye on TikTok.
SUMMERS: The Biden administration banned it from being downloaded on federal government devices. And then in March of 2023, there was that infamous five-hour congressional hearing with Shou Zi Chew, TikTok's CEO.
SHAPIRO: Here's Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas asking the CEO, a Singaporean citizen, about his connections to China.
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TOM COTTON: Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?
SHOU ZI CHEW: Senator, I'm Singaporean. No.
COTTON: Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?
CHEW: No, Senator. Again, I'm Singaporean.
SUMMERS: And then another shift - as the fight in the courts continued, Trump started to distance himself from the TikTok ban. Here he is talking to CNBC in March of 2024.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The thing I don't like is that, without TikTok, you're going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.
SHAPIRO: After Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok or risk a ban, Biden signed it into law.
SUMMERS: That was, of course, followed up by TikTok suing the U.S. government again, this time pointing to free speech. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law banning TikTok unless it was sold this past Friday.
SHAPIRO: But the blackout was short-lived, and as we said, after 14 hours, the app welcomed its users back with a pop-up message, quote, "as a result of President Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S."
SUMMERS: For now.
(SOUNDBITE OF KAYTRANADA SONG, "WEIGHT OFF") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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