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Supreme Court Says TikTok Can Be Banned on Sunday. Aired 10:30- 11a ET

Aired January 17, 2025 - 10:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:30:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: -- as, you know, we all have our phones. I have my iPhone here. Everybody has their phones. And I mean, to me, this sort of touches Apple too or touches Samsung, whatever kind of phone that you have. I mean, they can't let the app just run as normal Sunday night when this ban goes into effect, if it goes into effect, what do you think?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Right. It reminds us who the real gatekeepers are. It's Apple, it's Google, it's these phone and app store providers. One of two things will happen on Sunday, either -- the way the law is written, Apple and Google have to remove TikTok from their app stores so new users can't download it. But the app would still work. You could still log on. You could still watch videos, but it wouldn't be updated anymore.

It would be kind of like an old car. You could still drive it, but you couldn't get an oil change. You couldn't do maintenance. You couldn't change the wiper. So, at some point that car, that app will stop working. It'll just start to break down. That's option one.

The second option is much more dramatic. ByteDance could just turn off the app in the U.S. on Sunday, just turn it off almost as a way of punishing the United States and getting customers attention. They could put up a pop-up message that says, TikTok's gone. Sorry, and that'll put more pressure on President-Elect Trump to do something when he takes office on Monday.

And by the way, on the screen there, there is a third option, right? They could go ahead and sell the U.S. assets, but there's no indication that ByteDance really wants to do so. There's been talk about Elon Musk coming to the rescue. Maybe Trump will try to have Musk make a deal to take over the U.S. assets, to incorporate the video of TikTok into the X app. People are curious about that possibility.

But for now, I think we should focus on the app existing on Sunday, but starting to fall apart, and it'll be up to Trump to see what to do next.

ACOSTA: All right. Brian, thank you very much. Thanks to everybody for joining the discussion on this. We have more to follow on the breaking news after another short break. The Supreme Court, again, the breaking news says the TikTok ban can be implemented, can go into effect on Sunday. This has huge implications for Americans across the United States who use that app. We'll have more after a short break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:35:00]

ACOSTA: All right. back to the breaking news coming out of the Supreme Court. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the TikTok ban to go into effect on Sunday. This may be coming suddenly for a lot of Americans who use TikTok on a regular basis.

Big decision coming up for President-Elect Donald Trump as the incoming president who will have to decide whether or not to pause this ban on TikTok to allow users to continue using the platform. Our Pamela Brown is joining me now. And Pamela, I understand you had a quick phone call with Trump just a short while ago. What do you have to say?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I got the first reaction from Donald Trump to this TikTok ban being upheld by the Supreme Court, unless ByteDance sells TikTok. And he said, quote, "it ultimately goes up to me. So, you're going to see what I'm going to do."

I asked him what measures he would take to reverse the ban, what he thinks he can do as president, and he said again, he'll be making the decision. Congress has given me the decision. So, I'll be making the decision. He didn't provide further details exactly on what that means, Jim. We know from our reporting that his team has been weighing some sort of executive action that could be taken to give ByteDance more time.

As you know, the law has really high limits here. It says that there could be a 90-day extension for ByteDance for some deal to be worked out for it to be sold. But only if there are concrete negotiations taking place showing that there really is a buyer and that these are real negotiations. But as you know, ByteDance has said that it does not want to sell the app. I mean, that is the latest that we've heard from ByteDance.

Now, we know that President Trump spoke to President Xi of China this morning as well, and I asked him about that, and he did say -- he did confirm that the two talked, and he said they had a great talk about TikTok, and a great talk about many other subjects. He didn't want to go into any further detail about that, but it is notable that he talked to President Xi because that's really the source of the concern here, that this is a Chinese-owned Company, right, that owns Tiktok. And as you saw from the Supreme Court opinion today, the concern is the national security implications that China is collecting data on American citizens and that it could be used to manipulate Americans.

And so, that is basically Donald Trump's reaction. So, it remains to be seen what specifically he's going to do. But he is saying in his first reaction that it's ultimately up to me. But again, this thing goes into effect Sunday.

ACOSTA: Yes.

BROWN: And the Biden administration, the Biden White House officials telling CNN that it's going to leave it up to Donald Trump.

ACOSTA: Sure, yes.

BROWN: And so, what happens between Sunday and when Trump takes office is a real question because these companies are worried they're going to be fine by the minute, apparently, if TikTok continues after the ban is put into place. And so, there's a lot of open questions right now.

ACOSTA: Yes, this is going to land on Donald Trump's plate and on inauguration day, he plans to have the CEO of TikTok with him at the inaugural. So, I'm sure they'll have plenty to discuss there. A little bit of a game of chicken going on, it seems right now.

BROWN: And we should also note, Jim --

ACOSTA: Yes.

BROWN: Not to interrupt, but this is -- again, I mean, Donald Trump has completely changed his stance on this, right?

ACOSTA: Yes.

BROWN: He used to be -- he was one of the first ones to be --

ACOSTA: Oh yes, we pointed that out earlier.

BROWN: Yes.

ACOSTA: He was the one who sort of got this train rolling.

BROWN: Exactly.

ACOSTA: That he wanted to ban TikTok. It became a cause for Republicans up on Capitol Hill. A lot of Democrats have joined in and said, we agree with it. There has been bipartisan support for doing this. Now, we'll see how it plays out in the coming days, but all right, Pamela Brown, thank you very much.

More on the other side of the break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

ACOSTA: Back to the breaking news at the Supreme Court. Supreme Court saying that the TikTok ban can go into effect on Sunday. Not a huge surprise, but huge implications for people who use TikTok all over the country. Let me bring in CNN's Arlette Saenz over at the White House.

The White House has just issued a statement on this opinion. It sounds as though they're going to leave this for the next administration that's coming in, oh, I don't know, 48, 72 hours from now. What can you tell us, Arlette?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, the White House essentially is saying that the ball is in President-Elect Trump's court at this time, as they've said that the implementation of this ban on TikTok would fall to the next administration.

[10:45:00]

I want to read you a statement that we got just moments ago from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who said that the president believes TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law. She adds, given the sheer fact of timing, this administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next administration, which takes office on Monday.

This ban on TikTok is set to take -- go into effect just hours before President-Elect Trump is inaugurated and returns to the White House. So, the statement from the White House is suggesting that they would not be enforcing this, enacting any penalties, for instance, on service providers who might keep the app up and running after this ban goes into effect.

Now, there had been some Democratic lawmakers who had lobbied President Biden to extend the discussions about this law relating to TikTok their -- is authority for the president to provide a 90-day extension, but there are certain requirements that have to be that. And White House officials say that those requirements have yet to been -- have been met or discussed.

For instance, there would need to be credible negotiations that show that they are -- ByteDance was working towards selling to an American company or another company that would fall under those requirements in the law. So, simply at this time, as President Biden is winding down his own time in office, he's saying that they are leaving this up to the Trump administration to really enforce, as this TikTok ban is set to take -- go into effect on Sunday.

ACOSTA: Yes. Passing the hot potato, you might say. All right. Arlette signs over at the White House. Thanks so much. We'll continue to follow the breaking news. We've got a lot of analysts here with us to continue to break this down.

A big change for people who use TikTok. You might not be able to use it much longer after the decision at the Supreme Court. More after a short break. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00]

ACOSTA: All right. Back to the breaking news on the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court clearing the way for the TikTok ban to go into effect this weekend on Sunday, it sounds like, unless something intervenes. Let me bring in CNN's Hadas Gold. Hadas, what is going to happen when people try to open up this app on Sunday? It sounds like it could be sort of a cascading effect. It may work for a while, but if this stretches into Monday and Tuesday, maybe not so much. What can you tell us?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, officially, TikTok has not said exactly what the app will look like come Sunday. There is some reporting that when users try to open the app on Sunday, they're going to get a pop-up that explains the ban. There's some reporting there will be then an option to download your information.

And Jim, I do want to note something very important. It's not just users in the United States who are going to be affected by this man, even though the Supreme Court ruling obviously only applies to the United States, and that's because a lot of the service providers who help keep the app running, they're based in the United States. And so, if they stop hosting TikTok, then users around the world who's -- they might not know which way their service provider goes to the sort of back, you know, underside network of all of this, if their service provider that they happen to use for that country gets taken -- takes down TikTok as well, then their access may be hurt as well.

So, here's some advice for people who love their TikToks and love the videos they themselves have posted or other videos they've posted on TikTok. Don't wait until Sunday. Start downloading your content today. There are options. You can easily look this up to start downloading the videos you have made onto TikTok. Any of the other information on TikTok you may want to save, just because we don't know exactly what this will look like come Sunday, you know, and how difficult it may be to download your information.

Now, something that's interesting coming from the creators who have built their careers on TikTok is right now they're scrambling, trying to make sure that their followers still follow them, even if it's on a different platform, whether that be Instagram or YouTube or X or any of the like.

We've even seen some creators trying to just get the old school e-mail addresses of their followers as a way to try and get -- you know, make sure that they stay in contact with their followers. Because their follower basis is how they make their money based off of advertisers.

We haven't seen one single app that everyone has sort of decided that's where they're going to go, even though there has been the popularity of some of these apps like RedNote, like Lemon8. But I should note a lot of them are either owned by ByteDance, they would still be subjected to this law as well, or they are also Chinese-owned apps.

So, very -- a lot of uncertainty out there for a lot of the creators. And what I'm seeing right now on TikTok is a lot of these sort of -- you know, sort of funny, sort of sad goodbye reels to -- goodbye videos to TikTok.

ACOSTA: Oh, my goodness. People are sort of saying goodbye, saying farewell to all their loyal followers out there. Is that what they're doing? My goodness.

GOLD: Yes, and to the app itself.

ACOSTA: Yes. Brian Stelter -- I think Brian's also standing by. We're having sort of a media panel here on the hour, which is terrific. Brian, I mean, to what Hadas was saying there a few moments ago, you know, it's sort of the law of unintended consequences here.

You know, I think when everybody said, OK, and there was a lot of political posturing going on here in Washington, let's shut down TikTok, let's stick it to the Chinese. And now, you know, in practice, this may not be that simple.

STELTER: Nobody wants to be blamed for this, Jim. I just went back and looked at what that House vote was. The initial House vote for this national security bill, 360 to 58. This was not close. Republicans were fully on board with this, so were most Democrats. This easily passed the House last year.

But back then, the ban was still months away. A lot of users didn't believe it would actually happen. I've had everybody from my dentist to my babysitter asking this week, are they actually going to shut down TikTok? Because this did not sink in until the last few days.

To Hadas' point, those rival apps, those alternative apps, there's no perfect TikTok clone, but there's a bunch of alternatives. People have been trying them out. Meta's stock initially bounced on this news about an hour ago, but then it dropped back down because even Meta, the owner of Facebook and Threads and Instagram, doesn't have a perfect TikTok alternative.

[10:55:00]

But the best ones that have been, you know, embraced this week are Chinese-owned. I had a tech executive e-mail me the other day and say, aren't we just trading one Chinese app for another? So, that is the situation that's going to unfold now if TikTok actually does go away on Sunday.

But I think the Biden White House statement confirms that it will not start to fade away on Sunday, at least until Monday, TikTok will remain. And Hadas said, now this will be a situation where people will be affected possibly, but we don't know exactly how they'll be affected.

ACOSTA: Right. The Biden White House people seem to be saying not my section, not my table anymore. They're passing this off to Trump and it's now his mess. And to some extent he got this thing started. So, he's going to have to deal with it. And it is interesting to see the 180 he has done on this app because of the huge MAGA following on there of course,

Hadas and Brian, thank you both very much. And thanks to all of you for joining this morning. It's always an honor and a privilege and a pleasure to be with you day after day, week after week. I'm Jim Acosta. We'll continue to follow the fallout of the Supreme Court's opinion on TikTok when our next hour of Newsroom with Pamela Brown starts after a short break. Have a great weekend, everybody.

[11:00:00]