President Donald Trump extended on Thursday the deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban on the app for a third time. Some Republican lawmakers are starting to lose their patience with the administration.
“Since it’s been extended two or three times already without any repercussions, I just want finality,” Sen. Chuck Grassley told reporters Monday about TikTok. “I want some certainty, and just know that the Congress isn’t being played, when we’ve made a decision.”
An additional 90-day extension wasn’t particularly welcome news to many Republican senators.
“I’m not a big fan of the extending because it reduces our leverage. It suggests that it doesn’t really matter if we sell it or not, it’s gonna keep operating,” Sen. Josh Hawley told reporters about Trump’s planned extension of the deadline. “I think we want to create a sense of urgency where it’s like, ‘Actually it’s going to cease to exist unless we agree to sell it.’”
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In April 2024, Congress passed a foreign aid package that included a provision forcing ByteDance, the Chinese corporation that owns TikTok, to divest from the social media platform by Jan. 19 or else have it be banned for U.S. users. The push to sever the app from ByteDance stemmed from concerns over the company’s ties to the Chinese government, with lawmakers worried TikTok could become a tool for espionage or propaganda.
While banning TikTok was originally Trump’s idea, he eventually warmed up to the app during the 2024 election, partly due to his popularity on it. Trump ended up campaigning on saving TikTok and has been opposed to banning it, in accordance with the law, since he took office. On Thursday morning he signed another executive order moving the deadline for a sale to mid-September.
The administration has said these are temporary extensions.
“This extension will last 90 days, which we will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement sent to NOTUS about the latest expected extension.
In Congress, Republicans have deferred to Trump on how to manage TikTok’s divestiture.
“Congress passed the law on TikTok because our objective is to force the Chinese Communist government to divest,” Sen. Ted Cruz told NOTUS. “As long as that happens, I expect Congress will be happy. If it doesn’t happen, I expect Congress will be very unhappy.”
When asked what Congress can do to pressure the administration to comply with the law it passed last year, lawmakers’ answers were less clear.
“One step at the time,” Cruz told NOTUS.
The legislation passed by Congress allows the president to issue a single 90-day extension to finalize a deal, but it has already been more than 150 days since the administration failed to meet the initial deadline. By the time Trump’s latest extension is over, 240 days will have passed.
“I feel like Biden ignored the deadline, now this administration is ignoring the deadline, and I feel like TikTok needs to find new ownership or be shut down,” Sen. Thom Tillis told NOTUS. Former President Joe Biden did not enforce a ban on TikTok during his last day in office, deferring the issue to the incoming Trump administration.
Senate Republicans have said in recent months that the administration has not briefed lawmakers on any divestiture plans — even when the law requires the president to present Congress with “a path to executing a qualified divestiture” in order to issue an extension. This week, Hawley and Cruz told NOTUS that was still the case.
But with rising tensions in the Middle East and complex budget negotiations still underway, for some Republicans, TikTok has already become a second-tier priority.
“Look, I think he’d love to make a deal on it,” Sen. Mike Rounds told NOTUS. “[Trump’s] got bigger fish to fry right now. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt in terms of what he’s focusing on.”
Other Republicans have been more straightforward.
“Are you talking about TikTok?” Sen. Ron Johnson asked NOTUS. “I couldn’t care less.”
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Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
This story has been updated to note President Trump signed an order extending the deadline on Thursday morning.
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