The Justice Department on Friday urged the Supreme Court to reject President-elect Donald Trump’s request to delay the implementation of a law that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. or force its sale by its Chinese parent company by Jan. 19.
The latest filing in the Supreme Court case comes after Trump’s lawyer D. John Sauer asked the court to pause the law beyond the deadline to give the president-elect “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution to the questions at issue in the case.”
The DOJ argued that Trump’s filing took “no position” on the First Amendment question, which is the basis of the lawsuit that the Supreme Court agreed to hear on a fast-tracked basis. TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, sued to try to stop implementation of the law, arguing that it violates its free speech rights under the First Amendment.
The DOJ said that granting Trump’s request would equate to a temporary injunction and could only be implemented if ByteDance established a likelihood that it would win the case, but that the company had not done so.
The Justice Department also tackled ByteDance’s First Amendment argument head-on in Friday’s filing.
“The Act does not warrant heightened First Amendment scrutiny because it does not impose a burden on any cognizable First Amendment rights of ByteDance, its U.S. subsidiary, or TikTok’s users,” lawyers for the department wrote.
“The Act satisfies any level of First Amendment scrutiny, and this Court should uphold it,” they added.
If the Supreme Court doesn’t act by Jan. 19 or sides with the U.S. government, TikTok would be banned just one day before Trump is inaugurated, something he pointed out in his own filing in the case late last month.
“President Trump takes no position on the underlying merits of this dispute. Instead, he respectfully requests that the Court consider staying the Act’s deadline for divestment of January 19, 2025, while it considers the merits of this case,” Sauer wrote.
Still, on his own social media platform, TruthSocial, Trump has been outspoken in his opposition to banning TikTok.
On Friday morning, he wrote, “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?” alongside a digital graphic showing that his TikTok account has received more views than the accounts of Vice President Kamala Harris, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, Fox News, and pop stars Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
NBC News has not independently verified the accuracy of this chart.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case on Jan. 10, just nine days before the app is set to be banned under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed 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, is still the owner of TikTok, effectively pushing ByteDance to sell the app to a U.S.-based company to allow the app to continue operating here.
“Nothing in the Act would prevent a post-divestiture TikTok from presenting exactly the same content in exactly the same manner. The Act targets control by a foreign adversary, not protected speech,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in Friday’s filing.
A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Jake Traylor and Daniel Barnes contributed.
