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\n

Members of Congress are declaring themselves bewildered by Donald Trump\u2019s latest proposal to save TikTok by brokering a joint-ownership deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what he means by that,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), of Trump\u2019s suggestion to broker a \u201cjoint venture\u201d in which \u201cthe U.S. should be entitled to get half of TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I don’t understand what the president is doing,\u201d said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

Trump has promised to hash out a deal to keep TikTok in business, despite a law that ordered its parent company to divest by last Sunday. His solution is a split-ownership arrangement<\/a> that may involve the U.S. itself owning a share of the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m thinking about saying to somebody is, buy it and give half to the United States of America,\u201d Trump said at a press conference Tuesday night. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll give you the permit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea has managed the unique Washington feat of uniting both supporters and skeptics of the ban, who object to both the idea of joint ownership with China and U.S. ownership of a social-media app at all \u2014 and also argue it doesn\u2019t comply with the law\u2019s requirement that ByteDance simply divest the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the law, it doesn\u2019t allow that. It\u2019s my understanding of the law,\u201d Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a staunch Trump ally, told Blue Light News.<\/p>\n

Paul, who opposes the TikTik ban on free-speech grounds and introduced his own bipartisan bill<\/a> this week to repeal it, said he was opposed to Trump\u2019s solution: \u201cI\u2019m not for public ownership of any companies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comments haven\u2019t specified whether half would go to an American owner, or literally half would be owned by America. <\/i>Trump\u2019s idea also appears to give a role to China<\/a> in the negotiations and possibly the ownership structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019d be a forever violation of the law. It wouldn\u2019t be a minor adjustment,\u201d said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-S.D.). \u201cI think if China has one percent ownership, it\u2019s a violation of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also not clear under the law what role Congress can play in stopping Trump.<\/p>\n

On the floor Wednesday, Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, pleaded with Trump to take a more collaborative approach on the app\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenators and members of Congress want to work with President Trump as he tries to end what is a Chinese overinfluence on such an important national security threat,\u201d she said. \u201cI don’t know that a joint venture with the Chinese is going to rectify this issue about the algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of Congress are declaring themselves bewildered by Donald Trump\u2019s latest proposal to save TikTok by brokering a joint-ownership deal. \u201cI don\u2019t know what he means by that,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), of Trump\u2019s suggestion to broker a \u201cjoint venture\u201d in which \u201cthe U.S. should be entitled to get half of TikTok.\u201d “I don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}