Former President Donald Trump said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box” that if TikTok is banned, it will benefit Facebook, which is an “enemy of the people.”
Co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin said, “It appears that you’ve now reversed your view on banning TikTok. Why is that?”
Trump said, “So I had it done. And then Congress said, well, they never, they ultimately, usually fail, you know, they are extremely political.”
He continued, “But as you know, I was at the point where I could have got that done if I wanted to. I sort of said, you guys decide you make that decision because it’s a tough decision to make. Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it. There are a lot of users. There’s, you know, a lot of good, and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger. And I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media. What Facebook did with lock boxes, with a $500 million Zuckerberg’s lock boxes that he put in. I mean, I considered illegal.”
He added, “They deal in China, and China if China wants anything from them, they will give it. So that’s a national security risk also. But when I look at it, I’m not looking to make Facebook double the size. And if you, if you ban TikTok, Facebook and others, but mostly Facebook will be a big beneficiary. And I think Facebook has been very just, I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”
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