President Donald Trump claimed he scored a first for any Republican president during the 2024 election — but voter results say otherwise.
When asked by a reporter on Wednesday about reaching a deal with TikTok, Trump said he wants to “save” the social media platform, but said that China is “never easy” in negotiations.
The deal, which Trump previously said was still “on the table,” stems from his demand for ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, to divest and transfer the platform to American ownership or face a ban in the U.S. Trump has continued to extend TikTok’s deadline to stay running in the country, with most recently giving the company until June 19 to come to an agreement.
While speaking in the Oval Office, Trump emphasized that TikTok was “very good to me” during his campaign for the presidency.
“I won the young people by 37%,” Trump told reporters. “No Republican’s ever won, and I won by 37%.”
However, according to several polling results following the election, the then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris secured the vote among younger age groups. Trump, though, did gain ground, especially among the youth male vote, which they both targeted while on the campaign trail.
A CBS News poll compiling exit poll results found that voters between the ages of 18 to 29 picked Harris by 54% to 43%, while those aged 30 to 44 chose Harris by 51% to 47%.
Tufts University’s nonpartisan Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement reported that younger voters favored Harris to Trump by 52% to 46%, respectively.
And a Navigator Research analysis, which compiled data from 5,000 self-reported general election voters, detailed that Americans under the age of 30 voted for Harris by four more percentage points.
Trump went on to say that his perceived victory of the youth vote is due to the help of one conservative activist.
“Charlie Kirk will tell you TikTok helped, but Charlie Kirk helped also,” Trump joked.
The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan fact tank, found last year that around 59% of adults under the age of 30 use the platform, compared to only a third of all U.S. adults. In a poll released in March, public support for a TikTok ban is at 34% — a decrease from 50% in March 2023. Many who did express concerns about the app pointed to data security.
TikTok, which has headquarters in Singapore and Los Angeles, has said it prioritizes user safety, and China’s Foreign Ministry has said China’s government has never and will not ask companies to “collect or provide data, information or intelligence” held in foreign countries.
Trump said any potential deal with China would not look like Nippon Steel-U.S. Steel, an arrangement with a Japanese corporation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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