Republican lawmakers have something in common with TikTok fans: They have no idea what will happen when time is up on the 75-day deadline extension President Donald Trump gave for the platform’s owner to sell the app or face a ban.
The period designated to broker a deal ends Saturday. ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based owner, hasn’t sold. And the White House has yet to brief Republicans on Capitol Hill about what comes next, according to a dozen lawmakers NOTUS spoke to on Monday evening.
“I don’t know that there’s a deal that’s been brokered yet. It’s hard to brief somebody on a deal that hasn’t come together,” Rep. Dusty Johnson said.
Trump’s TikTok order was one of his first acts in open defiance of Congress this term. While he once attempted a ban himself, he has now framed himself as a protector of the popular app against lawmakers — including from his own party — who say its Chinese ownership puts Americans at risk. While many Republicans have agreed that he has discretion on the matter, some indicated they’re not willing to let the law slide indefinitely.
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“Unless there is a deal, I expect the law to be followed, and I expect that they will have to divest or they will be shut out from the American market,” Sen. Mike Rounds told NOTUS.
Vice President JD Vance was tasked with brokering a deal to divest TikTok by April 5 and said last month that he expected to have an outline for the sale by the deadline, although legal issues would likely mean the matter was settled later.
Sen. Ted Cruz, chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, told NOTUS that neither he nor anyone else on the committee had been briefed by Vance’s team on a deal, to his knowledge.
“I don’t know what will happen, what I hope will happen is that TikTok will be sold and will cease to be under Chinese control,” Cruz said. “The entire purpose of the legislation was to end the risk of Chinese espionage and propaganda. That’s what needs to happen.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump told reporters on Sunday that the White House will announce a sale sometime this week and that there is a plenitude of potential buyers. “There’s tremendous interest in TikTok,” Trump said. “I’d like to see TikTok live.”
Last time TikTok’s divestiture missed a deadline, Trump directed the Department of Justice not to enforce the law even though the lack of a deal put the extension on murky legal grounds.
While TikTok itself and a coalition of users of the platform originally challenged this law under First Amendment grounds, the Supreme Court upheld the divestiture effort 9-0. The ruling recognizes that the law does not directly ban TikTok but requires the platform’s owners to sell it to a company that is not under Chinese control.
Some Republicans say that even though they have given Trump ample deference on his discretion to execute the law, the risk to national security posed by ByteDance’s connection to the Chinese Communist Party means that they need to follow through with the ban.
“I do know that the deadline is gonna pass, and at the end of the day we gotta make a decision to move on against TikTok,” Sen. Dan Sullivan told NOTUS.
While Trump has turned around to become a staunch defender of the platform, congressional Republicans say they’re still concerned with TikTok’s alleged Chinese propaganda and data gathering.
“This is an important thing to stand up to the Chinese government that is doing something very nefarious in my opinion,” Republican Rep. Rich McCormick told NOTUS. “There’s only one way they’re gonna be held accountable and it is if we enforce the law we have already passed.”
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Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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