Trump flip flops on House’s U.S. TikTok ban, pulling rug from under Republican allies

Former President Donald Trump is flip flopping on banning TikTok, pulling the rug from under Republican congressional allies pushing legislation that would force the popular Chinese-owned app to be sold.

Trump Monday reversed his previous strong support for a GOP-backed bill that gives the app’s Chinese owner a few months to sell it or be shut down.

“There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad” with TikTok, Trump said on CNBC. “There are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.”

Trump conceded that TikTok is a national security risk because the Chinese government could force the app’s owner ByteDance hand over data from U.S. users.

But the presumptive Republican presidential nominee sought to change the subject to Facebook, which he claims would benefit from a ban of TikTok.

“Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Trump added.