Biden ally Jim Clyburn explains his 'no' vote
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a prominent Biden ally, said he voted no on the TikTok bill because it’s unfair to “single out” one company.
“I got a bunch of Chinese companies in my district. They make refrigerators and all kinds of stuff,” he told NBC News.
Asked about the impact on young voters in the 2024 election, Clyburn said, “Well, that certainly is something that I think about, and I do believe that if we are going to do this, we need to do it for everybody in every way." That includes taking a look at Section 230 of the Communications Act, he said.
Scalise urges Senate to pass the bill
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., called on the Senate to pass the TikTok bill, just minutes after the House had pushed it through.
"The House just passed a bipartisan bill to force TikTok to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist Party," Scalise wrote in a post on X.
"This is a critical national security issue. The Senate must take this up and pass it," the congressman added.
Pence calls TikTok 'digital fentanyl'
Former Vice President Mike Pence, applauding the House's passage of the TikTok bill, condemned the popular social media platform as "digital fentanyl for America's youth."
The app "can be used as a technological weapon by the Chinese Communist Party, its potency was already witnessed in TikTok’s campaign to prevent this legislation from passing," Pence said in a post on X.
Pence's position puts him at odds with his ex-boss, former President Donald Trump, who is opposed to Congress' efforts to ban TikTok.
Who is Jeff Yass? The billionaire donor with investments in TikTok’s parent company
In the pitched battle between TikTok and Washington, few people stand to lose more than Jeff Yass, an American billionaire options trader who has emerged in recent years as a major donor to Republican candidates and causes.
Yass co-founded the Philadelphia-based trading firm Susquehanna International Group, which owns a 15% stake in TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance. Yass’ personal share is 7%, worth roughly $21 billion.
Yass’ investment is under threat today, and the typically press-shy billionaire is taking fire from both the left and the right. Critics accuse Yass of bankrolling an army of lobbyists and orchestrating a bare-knuckle pressure campaign to protect TikTok — including by leveraging his nascent relationship with former President Donald Trump.
Through a spokesperson, Yass declined to comment on this story.
Free speech lawyer says TikTok ban is unconstitutional
Alex Abdo, a lawyer at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University: “That law would be unconstitutional. Americans have a right to access information and ideas from around the world including from speakers the government doesn’t like.”
He added that the government could pass laws to address privacy and data collection concerns, but this legislation does not attempt to do that. He noted the Supreme Court ruled in 1965 that Americans had a right to receive communist propaganda if they wished to and any attempt to ban TikTok would raise similar issues.
Rep. Jeff Jackson, most-followed member on TikTok, votes for ban
Rep. Jeff Jackson, D-N.C., whose account on the platform has 2.5 million followers, voted for the ban.
Shortly after the vote, he posted a TikTok explaining his vote. The video opens with him saying "I don't think TikTok is going to be banned" and that he expects the company to be sold. He explains his vote as being a way to protect both TikTok and users of the platform from political interference by China.
He lightly criticized some of the other members who supported the bill, saying, "I know a lot of you have seen some members of Congress be deeply uninformed about this because they don't use TikTok and they don't care."
Jackson is not running for re-election this year due to redistricting rendering him less competitive in his district. He is instead running for North Carolina attorney general.
On X, people are posting their favorite TikTok videos
A particularly viral post on X posed a question: "What video is the reason they shouldn’t ban TikTok?"
Posted on Friday, it is now approaching 400 million views and has more than 13,000 quotes, most of those featuring funny and bizarre videos from TikTok. Check it out if you have an hour — or several — to kill.
Rep. Nancy Mace on 'no' vote: 'Nowhere in the Constitution' does it say you can ban apps
In comments to reporters after voting against the bill, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said, “It is not the role of government to ban apps from the app store. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that.”
Mace said her opposition to the bill was not due to Trump coming out against it, saying, "No one swayed me one way or the other."
TikTok ban’s fate is uncertain in the Senate, where there is less urgency to act
The House-passed bill that could ban TikTok faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where there is less urgency to act and senators have different theories about how to address national security concerns about the app’s China-based owner.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the Senate is unlikely to accept the House bill as is and called for an open amendment process to make changes to it.
“I think it’s more than likely that we will take up their bill and amend it and say we’ve come up with some areas where we think it needs improvement,” Cornyn said. “My concern is that if you try to deal with this by name, you’re playing a game of whack-a-mole, because what’s TikTok today, next week it’s TokTik or TicTak or whatever.”