The House of Representatives voted in favor of a bill banning TikTok from the US if its parent company, Chinese media company ByteDance, doesn't divest from the social media app. The bill now heads to the Senate where its fate is not assured. Many on Wall Street and in the political sphere debate as to whether this bill can make it all the way to President Biden's desk.
Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman joins the Live show to discuss the bill, the possibility of its passing in the Senate, and what this situation could mean for Biden if he were to actually sign the bill into law.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino
Video Transcript
RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, the House this week passing a bill that could potentially lead to a ban of ByteDance app TikTok. Now it faces a slower path in the Senate. Let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman to give us those details. So Rick, here we are potentially Senate bound what should we be expecting.
RICK NEWMAN: Well, at this point I'm comfortable saying that I don't think this is going to get through the Senate in 2024. And here's the reason. There are 170 million Americans who use TikTok, something like 7 million businesses, tons of young people. President Biden desperately needs young people to vote for him in November. This is actually a vulnerability and Democrats also control the Senate.
So Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is a political animal the same way that President Biden is a political animal. And I just don't see those two guys agreeing that the Senate will move this bill and actually put it into place where Biden has to sign a bill that says he's going to ban TikTok unless the Chinese owners sell the company to a non-chinese entity. I would remind people as I've been trying to do all week that the main element of this bill is not to ban TikTok.
It's to get the Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell it so that the owners are not based in China. That's the real target but most of the headlines are around the ban because that would be the punishment if ByteDance does not sell TikTok. It would be banned in the United States. So I just don't see any way we're going to get there in 2024. After 2024, that might be a different story.
But we would be starting over where it would have to pass the House again. And then we'd restart the clock and if President Biden wins in November maybe he would sign it after 2024. President Trump, for his part tried to ban TikTok in 2020. But now he's changed his story and says maybe that's not such a good idea. So I think TikTok is going to be with us for a good long while.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: And as you mentioned they're obviously still a question of divestiture potentially to a US company. China has already said it will not support that the Chinese government coming out and saying that. But if it does get banned though where will the blame lie? Will it lie with President Biden who said he's already going to sign the bill if it comes or former President Trump, who said he wanted to leave it up to Congress and then also reversed roles as well.
In fact, throwing more of his ire towards what he sees as a potential beneficiary, which would be meta or Facebook.
RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. I think it's pretty simple to answer that question. If this legislation passes in 2024. And President Biden has said he would sign it. And I think he has said that because I think on the QT, he knows that the Senate is not going to pass it. But if Biden signs this bill in 2024.
He is going to be the guy everybody blames even if a ban-- I mean, a ban-- if they try to enact a ban, it would go to court. It would take years to get through court. In the meanwhile TikTok would continue to operate. But that turmoil alone would be a giant political problem for Biden.
I think it's already a political problem for Biden because on TikTok itself, you have a lot of the young people who post videos saying, why is Biden trying to ban TikTok given that he has said he would sign the bill. So I think what's going to have to happen here, I think number one this bill is not going to go anywhere in the Senate this year. But I think Biden is also going to have to do something to indicate to TikTok's.
Again 170 million users. I mean, we're talking about fewer than a million votes could decide the 2024 presidential election. So I think Biden's going to actually have to do something to reassure some of those people. And the last thing I would add Rochelle is Biden himself has started posting videos on TikTok.
He started around the Super Bowl this year. I've been looking through some of those videos this morning. There are 70 videos there from the Biden Harris campaign. So Biden himself is one of the people who uses TikTok to reach younger voters. So some mixed messaging here. And I would expect Biden to try to clear this up in coming weeks and months.
RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, certainly as you mentioned millions of users on TikTok will be watching that decision. Appreciate you as always our very own Rick Newman.
RICK NEWMAN: Here Michelle.