Politics

(WASHINGTON) — As his time in the White House comes to a close, President Joe Biden has implemented a series of executive orders and rules, trying to cement his policies before Donald Trump returns with the threat of undoing them.

From using provisions in federal law to ban much offshore drilling to commuting the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates, Biden has been determined to accomplish the political goals he set out to do four years ago.

Trump, never one to mince words against his rival, has condemned Biden’s moves, claiming he was hurting his agenda — what he says Americans voted for in November.

“They say we’re going to have a smooth transition. All they do is talk,” the president-elect told reporters Tuesday.

“I’m going to put it back on day one. I’m going to have it revoked on day one. We’ll go immediately if we need to… they try to be sneaky,” he said of Biden’s drilling ban.

Some academic policy experts, however, say Biden’s eleventh-hour decisions are not out of the ordinary, especially when it comes to a change of parties in the White House.

“This is pretty typical. Trump is just complaining about it louder,” Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist and lecturer in statistics at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, told ABC News.

The experts noted that Trump’s claims Biden is tying his hands are far from true as some of Biden’s policies can be overturned and mitigated.

On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for asylum seekers from Venezuela, El Salvador, Sudan, and Ukraine. Over 900,000 current beneficiaries will now have 18-month extensions, according to the order.

TPS is one of the few ways that an administration can protect a large group of migrants without congressional approval, however, it’s also within the DHS secretary’s power to end it. Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have vowed to end the program, which Trump attempted to do back during his first administration.

Biden announced earlier in the week a ban on offshore drilling using provisions in the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to push forward with the proposal. Under the act, the policy change can only be reversed through an act of Congress.

Dan Mallinson, a professor of public policy and administration at Penn State Harrisburg, told ABC News that it’s not unusual for administrations to pore through federal laws and regulations to find loopholes for executive orders that can’t be easily overturned.

“In a lot of cases, the executive order will be overturned even if it takes time, so those administrations will look for every win they can in the lame-duck session,” he said.

Mallinson said that Biden’s announcement this week of two national monuments in California which would preserve 840,000 acres from any federal drilling, was also done with the same kind of meticulous planning. He did note that Trump could change the plan by limiting the size of the monuments, which he did during his first term after similar moves by President Barack Obama.

Trump himself issued several of eleventh-hour orders during the last weeks of his first presidency, including one two days before he left office that would have scaled back punishments for regulations, only for Biden to reverse them in his first months in office.

“On the face of it, it’s pretty standard. Biden is not doing anything unusual compared to other presidents. It’s the normal course of things for decades,” Hanson said.

The experts pointed out that Trump also faced a similar situation in his first administration and undid several executive orders and changed various policies instituted by Obama in his first months of office, including his ban on offshore drilling.

Trump’s reversal of Obama’s order, however, was scaled back after then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a key Trump ally, raised concerns about how it would affect his state. The ban continued for Florida lands.

“It’s not always crystal clear if executive orders or last-minute policy changes will be reversed by the new president,” Mallison said.

The experts said when it comes to Biden’s moves, what was different is the messaging.

The president has been mostly silent during his lame-duck session and pushed on his policy changes with little fanfare, however, Trump has been making more headlines by sounding off on social media, interviews and other media appearances, Mallison noted.

And while Trump may make claims and boast as if he were in office, Biden still has power until Jan. 20, Mallison said.

“Trump is trying to exploit this mentality, which is wrong, that the government has to operate under the president-elect. But the reality is that, constitutionally, Biden is the president now and he can act on his authority,” he said.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — A day after the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied an effort to block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his two investigations into Donald Trump, the president-elect’s former co-defendants are trying to keep U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland from releasing the report to members of Congress.

Attorneys for Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira on Friday asked U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon, who earlier this week temporarily blocked the report’s release while the matter was considered by the Eleventh Circuit, to extend her three-day restraining order prohibiting the report’s release so she can hold a hearing about Garland’s proposed plan to release the portion of the report covering Smith’s classified documents investigation to the ranking members and chairs of the House and Senate Judiciary committees.

If successful, the move could result in a further delay of the report’s release, potentially past Trump’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

“Once the Report is disclosed to Congress, this Court will effectively lose its ability to control the flow of information related to privileged and confidential matters in a criminal proceeding,” wrote attorneys for Nauta, a longtime Trump aide, and De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago employee. That makes delaying the issuance of the Final Report until this matter is resolved essential, as there will be no way to put the proverbial cat back into the bag after the Final Report is shared with Congress, and no way to control congressional speech regarding the pending criminal case.”

It’s unclear if Judge Cannon has the jurisdiction to extend her restraining order after the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling left Cannon’s temporary order the only impediment stopping the report’s release. The Justice Department earlier Friday notified Judge Cannon of their intent to appeal her injunction in an effort to nullify the three-day restriction.
Garland has stated his intent to make Volume Two of the report, pertaining to Trump’s classified documents case, available to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for closed-door review as soon as he is permitted to do so, and to make Volume One of the report, regarding Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, available to the public.

Lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira have asked Cannon, who last year dismissed the classified documents case, to hold a hearing about whether Garland should be blocked from releasing the report while the government is still appealing the dismissal of the case against Nauta and De Oliveira.

“”This Court presides over the criminal matter and is best suited to resolve the questions presented by Defendants’ request for injunctive relief,” the attorneys wrote.

Trump pleaded not guilty in June 2023 to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities, and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira also pleaded not guilty in a superseding indictment to allegedly attempting to delete surveillance footage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

Friday’s filing comes amid escalating tensions between Trump’s lawyers and the Department of Justice. On Thursday, Trump’s co-defendants suggested that the DOJ violated Cannon’s order by submitting a letter to Congress about Smith completing his investigation. Smith, in turn, filed a notice claiming the defense assertion is unfounded.

“There is nothing about the government’s email to counsel for President-elect Trump, the government’s submission to the Eleventh Circuit, nor the Attorney General’s letter to Congress that violates this Court’s Order,” Smith wrote.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said on Friday he prays the Trump administration continues the focus on the federal response to the deadly wildfires that have ravaged Southern California.

Biden said he expected the death toll to rise as he was briefed by federal and state officials in the Oval Office. At least 10 people have been killed, and more injured, as fires continue to burn through the Los Angeles area.

With just days left in office, Biden said they’ve been coordinating with the incoming administration on the federal actions being taken to assist in fire management and help victims recover.

“My hope is that they’ll have — at least acknowledge we have some significant experience in this, we’ve done really well on it. I’m praying that they continue the focus,” the president said.

More than 30,000 acres have been burned this past week as five fires sprawled from the Pacific Palisades to Pasadena. Roughly 150,000 people were under evacuation orders and thousands of structures have been destroyed, including local landmarks.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who is on the ground in Los Angeles, said the tragedy is one of the worst disasters she’s witnessed in her four years leading the agency and that the rebuild will be complex.

“This recovery journey is going to be long, but we are going to be there with them to support them every step of the way,” Criswell said as she virtually joined the White House press briefing.

Criswell said FEMA had enough money to immediately respond to the fires, highlighting the $27 billion provided for the agency’s disaster fund by Congress in December.

Pressed by ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce on what the cost may be compared to other natural disasters, Criswell said it was hard to put an exact number as they continue to survey damage but that they “know that this is going to be billions.”

Criswell, discussing the transition, said FEMA has a dedicated staff that will continue to support Californians and a “whole team” dedicated to working with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition operation.

“They’re providing regular briefings to them on a daily basis and so we’re providing whatever information that they ask for,” she said.

Trump has pointed blame at Democrats, including Biden and Newsom, and spread some misinformation as the fires unfold. Criswell was asked if any such misinformation came up during their briefings with his team, though she did not directly respond.

President Biden on Thursday announced the federal government would cover 100% of the recovery costs for Los Angeles for 180 days. That would include debris removal, which the administration expects to be incredibly costly, as well as temporary shelters and pay for first responders.

“I mean, they look like a bomb hit,” Biden said on Friday on the devastation. “They look like they’re actually been blown up, entire sections of the cities blown up.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — A majority of justices on the Supreme Court on Friday appeared inclined to uphold a federal law that would ban the video-sharing app TikTok in the U.S. after Jan. 19 unless its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance divests from the platform.

The momentous case — TikTok v. Garland — pits one of the world’s most popular social media platforms against all three branches of the U.S. government, which have aligned over the idea that the app poses a serious risk to national security.

During oral arguments on Friday, concerns about intelligence threats posed by China and potential future weaponization of the app seemed to override concerns about potential infringement on free speech rights.

“Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent of TikTok is doing intelligence work?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked the company’s attorney, Noel Francisco.

Congress passed the law last April with large bipartisan majorities to target foreign adversary-owned platforms that collect troves of data on individual Americans and disseminate propaganda or disinformation. President Joe Biden signed it; lower federal courts have upheld it.

ByteDance, which owns TikTok and is headquartered in China, denies any malign activity in the U.S. and has argued the law violates free speech rights of the 170 million Americans it says use the app each month. It has previously ruled out a sale.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll last spring showed 34% of adults said they used the app, which matches an estimate from the Pew Research Center. Pew also reports that 63% of 13- to 17-year-olds use the platform. Together, these add up to about 103 million users.

The poll showed just 12% of adults reported using TikTok “often,” 10% said they used it “occasionally” and 12% said they use the app “rarely.”

Lower courts have rejected the company’s First Amendment challenges, saying the government’s justifications are compelling, given evidence of China’s extensive cyber espionage efforts and covert content manipulation.

“Unless TikTok executes a qualified divestiture,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote for the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, “TikTok’s millions of users will need to find an alternative media of communication. That burden is attributable to the [People’s Republic of China’s] hybrid commercial threat to U.S. national security, not to the U.S. Government.”

The Supreme Court heard the case on an unusually fast track, just days before a ban on TikTok is set to take effect on Jan. 19. A ruling is likely, though not guaranteed, this month.

Francisco, the attorney for TikTok, kicked off his argument on Friday by stating the law passed by Congress is a “burden on TikTok speech” and “at minimum” the court should temporarily pause the ban from going into effect.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, defending the law’s constitutionality, argued the Chinese government’s control of TikTok “poses a grave threat to national security” and the measure passed by lawmakers addresses that influence with “laser-like focus.”

Prelogar also addressed the First Amendment arguments made by the attorneys for TikTok and some users who would be impacted. She acknowledged that “millions of Americans enjoy expressing themselves” on the app but emphasized “the important thing to recognize is that the act leaves all of that speech unrestricted once TikTok is freed from foreign adversary control.”

If the ban is allowed, it would become unlawful for app stores run by U.S. companies like Apple and Google to offer TikTok downloads or updates with new features or technical fixes. It would not become a crime to use TikTok, and users who have downloaded the app could likely continue to use it for now, technology experts said.

More than a dozen countries, including India, Canada, Australia, and Taiwan, have already blocked or restricted TikTok. In 2023, the U.S. government banned the use of TikTok on any federal devices.

If the ban is put on hold, it would signal that the court has serious concerns about free speech.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has historically been highly deferential to the government’s position on matters of national security, but the justices are also likely to be cautious about a precedent-setting decision that could silence a wildly popular communication tool.

One wild card in the case may be the position of President-elect Donald Trump, who once unequivocally supported banning TikTok in the U.S. but now calls it a “unique medium for freedom of expression.”

Trump asked the court in a filing late last month to pause the divestiture deadline in order to give him a chance to reach a “negotiated resolution” to save the app once he takes office on Jan. 20.

In an amicus brief, Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, John Sauer, unusually invokes Trump as someone who “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government.”

Trump does not take a position on the constitutionality of the law and, legal experts said, does not provide a legal basis for the justices blocking or delaying otherwise lawfully enacted legislation unless they find it patently unconstitutional.

Both sides have already spent years trying to reach a deal to institute new privacy protections and independent oversight mechanisms that would assuage concerns of U.S. officials. TikTok had proposed creating a data security subsidiary, based in the U.S., and establishing strict limits on what user data could be accessed by Chinese authorities.

Top U.S. national security agencies ultimately deemed the proposals insufficient.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — A panel of judges on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling Thursday night, denied an effort to block the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report on his two investigations into Donald Trump.

U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed Trump’s classified documents case, temporarily blocked the report’s release on Tuesday, while the matter was considered by the Eleventh Circuit.

The Eleventh Circuit, in its decision, declined to immediately overturn Judge Cannon’s temporary injunction, instead ruling that the Justice Department can file a separate appeal if they want to release the report earlier than this Sunday, when Cannon’s injunction expires.

The Justice Department subsequently notified Judge Cannon of their intent to appeal her injunction blocking the report’s release, according to a court filing.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a letter to Congress informing them Wednesday that Smith had concluded his investigations, acknowledged that he was, at that time, barred by Judge Cannon from releasing the report outside of the Justice Department, but that he intended to make Volume One of the report, regarding Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, available to the public once he is “permitted to do so” by the courts.

Garland, in the letter, confirmed that he plans to make available Volume Two of the report, pertaining to Trump’s classified documents case, available to leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for closed-door review as soon as the Eleventh Circuit permits him to do so.

“Consistent with local court rules and Department policy, and to avoid any risk of prejudice to defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, whose criminal cases remain pending, I have determined, at the recommendation of the Special Counsel, that Volume Two should not be made public so long as those defendants’ criminal proceedings are ongoing,” Garland wrote.

“I have determined that once those criminal proceedings have concluded, releasing Volume Two of the Report to you and to the public would also be in the public interest, consistent with law and Department policy,” he wrote.

Garland’s letter was addressed to Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

Trump’s lawyers filed an amicus brief with the Eleventh Circuit late Wednesday, arguing that the release of the report would harm the transition to his presidency.

“The report is nothing less than another attempted political hit job whose sole purpose is to disrupt the presidential transition and undermine President Trump’s exercise of executive power,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

Trump’s lawyers argued that the release of the report would be “worse” than the four indictments Smith brought against the former president, by offering a “one-sided” view of the evidence without giving Trump the ability to defend himself.

“The Final Report goes into more detail about the alleged crimes President Trump and others supposedly committed and involves evidence that was never released to the public–indeed, evidence that could not be released, such as those involving official acts,” the filing said.

Trump’s lawyers claimed that Cannon’s decision deeming Smith’s appointment unconstitutional taints the report — which they described as an “extension of the unlawful acts of an unconstitutionally appointed and funded officer” — which should prohibit Garland from releasing it.

“Garland simply functions as a mouthpiece for the unconstitutionally-appointed Smith,” the filing said.

Trump downplayed the significance of the report at a press conference earlier this week.

“It’ll be a fake report, just like it was a fake investigation,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Trump pleaded not guilty in 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. He later pleaded not guilty to separate charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.

Smith has been winding down his cases against the former president since Trump was reelected in November, due to a longstanding Department of Justice policy prohibiting the prosecution of a sitting president.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration succeeded in blocking a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after a federal court issued an administrative stay of a hearing set for Friday.

The alleged 9/11 mastermind was expected to plead guilty as part of a plea agreement worked out by military prosecutors that would have removed the death penalty as a possibility in his case.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — The man who in 2016 showed up to a popular pizza restaurant with a gun, claiming there were children being trafficked in the basement, died in an officer-involved shooting on Thursday outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, according to authorities.

Edgar Maddison Welch was armed when he tried to take action against “Pizzagate,” a conspiracy theory that spread during the election cycle of 2016.

It falsely claimed that the New York City Police Department had discovered a child sex trafficking ring in the basement of Comet Ping Pong Pizza in Washington, D.C. The conspiracy theory falsely claimed that the criminal ring was run by operatives from within the Democrat Party.

Welch fired three shots at the restaurant in an effort to “self investigate” the ring, which didn’t exist. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

An officer made a traffic stop on the vehicle after observing that it belonged to Welch, who had an outstanding warrant for his arrest, the statement said.

“A vehicle stop was made by the officer and during his interaction with the driver, the officer recognized the front seat passenger as the person with the outstanding warrant for arrest,” according to the KPD.

“The officer who initiated the traffic stop approached the passenger side of the vehicle and opened the front passenger’s door to arrest the individual,” according to Kannapolis Chief of Police Terry Spry.

During the traffic stop, it was discovered that Welch was armed. Officers called for him to drop his gun, but he “failed to comply,” according to the statement.

“When he opened the door, the front seat passenger pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it in the direction of the officer,” he said in the statement, referring to Welch by his position within the vehicle.

“That officer and a second officer who was standing at the rear passenger side of the Yukon gave commands for the passenger to drop the gun,” Spry said.

His statement continued: “After the passenger failed to comply with their repeated requests, both officers fired their duty weapon at the passenger, striking him.”

Welch died two days later at a nearby hospital, Spry said.

The incident is being investigated by an outside police agency to determine if there was any wrongdoing.

ABC News’ Rick Klein contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, on Thursday urged Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from any consideration of President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to block his sentencing for his conviction in his hush money case in New York following ABC News’ reporting of a Tuesday phone call between Trump and Alito.

“Yesterday, we learned that President-elect Trump spoke to Justice Alito just hours before Trump asked the Supreme Court to halt his criminal sentencing in New York. Justice Alito brushed off this startling ex parte private phone call and breach of judicial ethics by asserting that this perfectly timed conversation actually regarded his recommendation of a former clerk for an administration job,” Raskin said in a statement.

“Especially when paired with his troubling past partisan ideological activity in favor of Trump, Justice Alito’s decision to have a personal phone call with President Trump—who obviously has an active and deeply personal matter before the court—makes clear that he fundamentally misunderstands the basic requirements of judicial ethics or, more likely, believes himself to be above judicial ethics altogether.”

ABC News reported that the call came just hours before before Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday morning filed an emergency request with the justices asking them to block a New York judge from moving forward with sentencing Trump in his criminal hush money case on Friday.

In his statement, Raskin said, “Justice Alito has made his political leanings and support for the president-elect clear, whether it be his display of flags in apparent support of the January 6th insurrectionists and the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, or his self-proclaimed ideological battle with ‘the Left.'”

“In our democracy, Americans expect their cases to be heard by impartial judges,” he said.

Alito told ABC News the call concerned a job recommendation for one of his former clerks in the new administration.

“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position,” the justice said Wednesday. “I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon.”

Alito said that he and Trump did not discuss his hush money case.

“We did not discuss the emergency application he filed today, and indeed, I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed,” Alito said. “We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the President-elect.”

It is not unusual for a sitting justice to offer a job recommendation for a former clerk, but it is rare, court analysts said, for a justice to have such a conversation directly with a sitting president or president-elect, especially one with an active stake in business pending before the court.

The court is expected to weigh in on Trump’s request by Friday morning.

The hush money case is not the only one before the Supreme Court that Trump has an interest in. On Friday, the court will hear a last-ditch challenge to a law that would ban the video-sharing app TikTok on Jan. 19 unless its Chinese-based parent company sells its stake.

Trump asked the court in a filing late last month to pause the divestiture deadline in order to give him a chance to reach a “negotiated resolution” to save the app once he takes office on Jan. 20.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Thursday released an assistance guide for those affected by the wildfires in the Los Angeles area.

FEMA said its disaster assistance can “jumpstart” the recovery process.

“FEMA disaster assistance is intended to meet the basic needs of your household for uninsured or underinsured necessary expenses and serious needs to jumpstart your recovery. If you have insurance and are applying for FEMA disaster assistance, you must file a claim with your insurance company first,” a release from the agency says. “By law, FEMA cannot duplicate benefits for losses covered by insurance. If insurance does not cover all your damage, you may be eligible for federal assistance.”

FEMA assistance can come in the form of many options, such as money for essential items like food, water, baby formula, breast feeding supplies, medication and other emergency supplies. Those affected by the fires also can apply for further relief funds, which could cover a stay in hotels if a home was impacted and residents are unable to return, according to the agency.

The White House said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell is in Los Angeles and, according to a FEMA official, has been in regular contact with state and local leaders and is surveying the damage.

President Joe Biden is set to meet with senior White House and administration officials Thursday at 4:30 p.m. regarding the wildfires and the federal response. On Wednesday, the president declared a “Major Disaster Declaration” to aid in the recovery.

“Yesterday, President Biden approved a Major Disaster declaration for California, allowing impacted communities and survivors to immediately access funds and resources to get through the coming days and begin to recover from the devastation,” the White House said in a fact sheet earlier Thursday. “The Administration is in regular contact with state and local officials, including Governor Newsom, Mayor Bass, their teams, and other state and local officials throughout the impacted areas.”

To learn more about the types of assistance available, the agency says, the public can visit: fema.gov/assistance/individual/program.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The future of TikTok in the U.S. hangs in the balance at the Supreme Court on Friday when the justices hear a last-ditch challenge to a law that would ban the video-sharing app in nine days unless its Chinese-based parent company sells its stake.

The momentous case — TikTok v. Garland — pits one of the world’s most popular social media platforms against all three branches of the U.S. government, which have aligned over the idea that the app poses a serious risk to national security.

Congress passed the law last April with large bipartisan majorities last year to target foreign adversary-owned platforms that collect troves of data on individual Americans and disseminate propaganda or disinformation. President Joe Biden signed it; lower federal courts have upheld it.

ByteDance, which owns TikTok and is headquartered in China, denies any malign activity in the U.S. and has argued the law violates free speech rights of the 170 million Americans it says use the app each month. It has previously ruled out a sale.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll last spring showed 34% of adults said they used the app, which matches an estimate from the Pew Research Center. Pew also reports that 63% of 13- to 17-year-olds use the platform. Together, these add up to about 103 million users.

The poll showed just 12% of adults reported using TikTok “often,” 10% said they used it “occasionally” and 12% said they use the app “rarely.”

Lower courts have rejected the company’s First Amendment challenges, saying the government’s justifications are compelling, given evidence of China’s extensive cyber espionage efforts and covert content manipulation.

“Unless TikTok executes a qualified divestiture,” Judge Douglas Ginsburg wrote for the D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, “TikTok’s millions of users will need to find an alternative media of communication. That burden is attributable to the [People’s Republic of China’s] hybrid commercial threat to U.S. national security, not to the U.S. Government.”

The Supreme Court is hearing the case on an unusually fast track, just days before a ban on TikTok is set to take effect on Jan. 19. A ruling is likely, though not guaranteed, this month.

If the ban is allowed, it would become unlawful for app stores run by U.S. companies like Apple and Google to offer TikTok downloads or updates with new features or technical fixes. It would not become a crime to use TikTok, and users who have downloaded the app could likely continue to use it for now, technology experts said.

More than a dozen countries, including India, Canada, Australia, and Taiwan, have already blocked or restricted TikTok. In 2023, the U.S. government banned the use of TikTok on any federal devices.

If the ban is put on hold, it would signal that the court has serious concerns about free speech.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has historically been highly deferential to the government’s position on matters of national security, but the justices are also likely to be cautious about a precedent-setting decision that could silence a wildly popular communication tool.

One wild card in the case may be the position of President-elect Donald Trump, who once unequivocally supported banning TikTok in the U.S. but now calls it a “unique medium for freedom of expression.”

Trump asked the court in a filing late last month to pause the divestiture deadline in order to give him a chance to reach a “negotiated resolution” to save the app once he takes office on Jan. 20.

In an amicus brief, Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, John Sauer, unusually invokes Trump as someone who “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government.”

Trump does not take a position on the constitutionality of the law and, legal experts said, does not provide a legal basis for the justices blocking or delaying otherwise lawfully enacted legislation unless they find it patently unconstitutional.

Both sides have already spent years trying to reach a deal to institute new privacy protections and independent oversight mechanisms that would assuage concerns of U.S. officials. TikTok had proposed creating a data security subsidiary, based in the U.S., and establishing strict limits on what user data could be accessed by Chinese authorities.

Top U.S. national security agencies ultimately deemed the proposals insufficient.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.