WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday downplayed concerns about the Chinese government using TikTok to surveil Americans — saying they would observe “young kids watching crazy videos.”
Trump, 78, said in his first interview since reclaiming power that he was aware of security concerns about the platform, which has an estimated 170 million US users, but thought they were overblown.
“Those that say they know say it’s a spying app for the Communist Chinese,” Fox News host Sean Hannity told Trump in an Oval Office sit-down two days into Trump’s second term.
“I know. But you can say that about everything made in China,” Trump replied.
“Look, we have our telephones made in China for the most part. We have so many things made in China. So why don’t they mention that?”
Trump, who said he had a “warm spot” for TikTok due to his improved performance among young voters, noted that the network is used primarily for amusing videos.
“The interesting thing with Tiktok, though, is you’re dealing with a lot of young people, So is it that important for China to be spying on young people, on young kids watching crazy videos?” Trump said.
“They make your telephones and they make your computers and they make a lot of other things. Isn’t that a bigger threat?”
Trump halted the implementation of a congressionally approved ban on TikTok on his first day in office on Monday, postponing the prohibition by 75 days.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew joined other tech titans in attending Trump’s Monday inauguration.
The newly sworn-in president said he wants Chinese owner ByteDance to sell a 50% share to an American partner.
“People want to buy it,” Trump told Hannity.
Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to ban TikTok if the Chinese firm wouldn’t divest.
The legislation sailed through the Senate in a 79-18 vote and the House in a 360-58 landslide and was signed by then-President Joe Biden, who ultimately deferred to Trump on whether to implement the ban, which had been set to take effect on his final day in office.
Trump previously was skeptical of TikTok, signing an executive order in 2020 that said its “data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”
He later came out against a ban on TikTok, saying it would boost Facebook’s power to censor political speech.
“There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media,” said Trump, who was barred from posting on the Mark Zuckerberg-led network in 2021.
