Former President Donald Trump announced on Saturday night that he’s joining TikTok, even as are those in his own party criticize a popular program and calls on its China-based parent company to invest.
Trump’s first post on the platform was a 13-second video, and this video was a 13-second video. UFC event Attended Saturday in New Jersey. In the first shot, Trump is joined by UFC president Dana White, who says, “The president is now on TikTok.”
“It’s my honor,” Trump replies as TikTok cuts to a montage of the former president greeting fans at the arena.
“It was a good walk, wasn’t it?” Trump says in the clip’s closing moments.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
Saturday’s action is far from over Trump’s position just a few years ago, when he issued an executive order that would have banned TikTok in the United States, the order was struck down in court.
The executive order signed by Trump in 2020 states: “The United States must take aggressive action against the owners of TikTok to protect our national security.
In March, Trump reversed course and He opposed the ban on TikTokHe said banning TikTok would improve business for social media apps he has previously criticized, such as Facebook.
At the same time, many Republicans are still staunchly opposed to TikTok, and Trump has said so viewed the program as a national security threat even after opposing the ban.
President Joe Biden in April signed the bill it would ban TikTok, though not immediately. The legislation started a nine-month clock for ByteDance to sell the app or face a TikTok ban in the US.
At the same time, Biden’s campaign Have a TikTok account and posts content regularly, and will likely continue to do so, as the possible ban will not take effect until after the election.
Trump’s joining TikTok comes just weeks after his backing super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., joined the program.
Even before Trump joined TikTok, the app had seen almost twice as many pro-Trump posts as pro-Biden posts since November, according to the New York Times reported last monthreferring to the internal analysis of the program.
Jillian Frankel and Alex Tabet contributed.