Banning TikTok could haunt Biden's reelection campaign

• On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill that could ban TikTok from US app stores.
• Biden's already said he'd sign it into law.
• Banning the app in the US could be disastrous to Biden's reelection chances.

The Senate passed a multifaceted foreign aid bill in a bipartisan landslide vote on Tuesday that, if President Joe Biden signs it into law, could ban TikTok from US app stores.

While Biden seems set to do just that — he said earlier in March that he'd sign the legislation — the move could easily backfire on his already-struggling 2024 reelection campaign.

Referred to by most as a "ban," the bill gives any company owned by a "foreign adversary" 270 days to either divest or sell to a US-based company before facing a hefty fine and potential legal action. TikTok is certainly now closer to getting banned in the US, but the nearly yearlong timeframe the bill — as well as the likelihood this will lead to a lengthy legal battle — means a ban would only occur post-election.

Pro-TikTok Americans and creators protested against an earlier version of the proposed ban for weeks in March, with some saying they worried their careers built on the app would be "deleted forever."

The app even took an unusual step to rally its users to speak out against the legislation:

"Stop a TikTok shutdown," the app said in a message to its users, linking them to their member of Congress' contact information. "Speak up now—before your government strips 170 million Americans of their Constitutional rights and free expression."

Members of Congress reportedly said before a House vote that TikTok's push backfired, making them more likely to vote in favor of banning it.

While Biden's been on board with the proposed TikTok ban for months, it's increasingly seeming like a political miscalculation with the November presidential election approaching.

A severe political misstep

For months, national polls have indicated that a rematch between Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump could be as close as the 2020 election, where five states won by Biden were decided by less than 85,000 votes. Many of those polls have shown that Trump appears to possess a slight advantage this go around.

With Biden already struggling to win over younger voters, openly backing the demise of one of the most popular social media apps in the world doesn't seem like the wisest move campaign-wise.

Trump, who tried and failed during his own presidency to ban the app, recently spoke out against the bill, noting that restricting it would likely benefit Facebook.

Trump's change of heart occurred soon after he met with Jeff Yass, a billionaire Republican donor and a prominent investor in TikTok's parent company.

While The New York Times reported in March that a "person close to the campaign" now expects Yass to make a pro-Trump donation, the former president's motives may be more than a way for his campaign to earn a quick buck. The closer the anti-TikTok bill gets to passing, the more easily he'll be able to convince young voters that Biden's behind the app shuttering, not him.

The former president tried doing just that on Monday, telling his followers on Truth Social, "Just so everyone knows, especially the young people, Crooked Joe Biden is responsible for banning TikTok."

In an election that could be extremely close, endorsing bills as decisive as the anti-TikTok one or gunning for Taylor Swift's endorsement — or lack thereof — could determine who wins control of the White House.

Just as Biden's slogan goes, that's "no malarkey."

Wednesday, April 24, 2024 — This story has been updated with news of the US Senate's passage of the bill that includes the TikTok ban.