Just over a year ago, lawmakers showed a rare show of bipartisanship by grilling TikTok CEO Shou Chu over the video app's ties to China. Their grilling suggested the U.S. government was preparing to force the company to sever ties with its Chinese owners or ban the app.
Then there was almost silence. Little came out of the House committee that held the hearing, and a proposal that would have allowed the administration to force a sale or ban of TikTok died in the Senate.
But behind the scenes, a small group of lawmakers began planning a secret effort, with the Senate passing a bill on Tuesday that would sell TikTok to Chinese owner ByteDance or risk being banned. The high tide has been reached. The move changes the future of the app, which claims to have 170 million users in the United States and touches on virtually every aspect of American life.
Lawmakers and some aides have been working on the bill for nearly a year, concealing efforts to avoid the influence of TikTok's lobbying efforts. The group worked with the Justice Department and the White House to fully protect the bill from expected legal challenges and win over anxious lawmakers.
And the final stage, the race to the president's desk that led some aides to dub the bill “Thunder Run,” ended seven weeks after the bill was publicly introduced, but it was a big deal for Washington. It was amazingly fast.
“You don't get an opportunity like this very often on serious issues,” said Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the Republican majority leader. He was one of 15 lawmakers, aides and officials directly involved in the bill's development and passage interviewed for this article.
“This fight has been going on for years,” Scalise said. “We learned a lot from each step, and we wanted to ensure a strong legal position and strong bipartisan coalition to do this.”
Their success stands in contrast to the stumbles of other lawmakers and U.S. officials who began trying to address national security concerns about TikTok during the Trump administration. They claim that the Chinese government could rely on ByteDance to obtain sensitive U.S. user data or influence the app's content to serve Chinese interests, such as interfering in U.S. elections. are doing.
TikTok has pushed back against the accusations, saying the Chinese government has no role in the company and has taken steps and spent billions of dollars to address the concerns. It has also aggressively fought back against previous actions by the federal and state governments in court.
But the strategy lawmakers have adopted in recent weeks has led to TikTok's failure. And while the app is unlikely to disappear from the phones of U.S. users as the next measures are developed, the Senate's passage of the bill would create a bill that could broadly ban foreigners from using it. It is notable as the first time Congress has sent it to the president. App.
TikTok spokesperson Alex Howrek said in a statement that the bill was “written in secret, rushed through the House, and ultimately passed as part of a larger must-pass bill. “That's because it's a prohibition that Americans don't like.”
“For Congress to pass a law that tramples on the free expression rights of 170 million Americans as part of a policy that claims to be aimed at promoting freedom around the world,” he said. It's unfortunately ironic,” he added.
From a small gathering to a large number
Work on the TikTok bill began last March when Scalise met with Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and told her that she wanted legislation against the app.
They began talking about the new bill across multiple committees with other Republican lawmakers and aides. By August, they had established a China-focused House committee, the Chinese Communist Party Select Committee, led by its chairman, Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthy, an Illinois Democrat. has decided to usher in potential legislation through.
A bipartisan committee quickly embraced the initiative. “What we realized was that there were so many different approaches and the technical issues were so complex,” Krishnamoorthi said.
So the committee developed a strategy to get support from Democrats, the White House, and the Justice Department for the new bill.
Their efforts accelerated last year after TikTok was accused by Gallagher and other members of Congress of deliberately pushing pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel content on users. Krishnamoorthi and others said the Israel-Gaza conflict has galvanized lawmakers' desire to regulate apps.
In November, the group, which had fewer than 20 key players at the time, brought in Justice Department officials and National Security Council staff, including Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, to secure support for the Biden administration's new legislation. . .
For years, the government has been considering TikTok's proposal, dubbed “Project Texas,” which aims to separate sensitive data of U.S. users from the company's other operations. Officials at the Justice Department and the National Security Council agreed to support the new bill, in part because they deemed Project Texas insufficient to address national security concerns surrounding TikTok. said two government officials.
In conversations with lawmakers, White House officials emphasized that ByteDance wanted to sell TikTok rather than ban it, according to three people involved in the process. One reason for this is that the app is popular with Americans.
The Justice Department and Mr. Monaco provided guidance on how to write a bill that would withstand legal challenges. TikTok has previously fended off attempts to ban it, citing users' First Amendment rights. Officials cited language in the bill to defend against such claims on national security grounds.
With support from the administration, the group secretly recruited more supporters in the House of Representatives. The Department of Justice, along with members of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI, briefed a House committee on the threat posed by TikTok's Chinese ownership. A press conference was then held in the Senate.
Monaco also met separately with members of Congress and warned them that TikTok could be used to interfere with U.S. elections.
“She's making a strong case and the data collection is happening,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia. “We also agreed that there are 170 million Americans who are vulnerable to propaganda.” Monaco and Munich in February.
On March 5, Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Krishnamoorthy announced the bill and named about 50 members of Congress to support it. The Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Ms. McMorris Rodgers, considered the bill that week.
TikTok, which had been negotiating with U.S. authorities over its Project Texas plan, was caught off guard. The company quickly sent information to members of the Energy and Commerce Committee outlining TikTok's economic contribution to the district, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. It also used pop-up messages on the app to encourage users to call their legislators to oppose the ban.
But some lawmakers felt the bill was being misrepresented after some lawmakers' offices were flooded with hundreds of calls, including from callers who appeared to be minors.
“At that point, a lot of lean Jesuses turned into Hell Jesuses,” Krishnamoorthi said.
Republican presidential candidate Trump announced his opposition to the bill, sparking panic. But Scalise urged Trump to reconsider and said the vote could move forward.
Two days after the bill was announced, McMorris Rodgers' committee voted 50-0 to advance it to the full House, and the following week it passed 352-65.
Two people familiar with the matter said there were tears of joy in Krishnamoorthi's office. Mr. Gallagher's staff celebrated with a cookie cake sent by Mr. Scalise, one of his signature rewards for passing the bill.
A less certain future
Even if the bill passed quickly in the House, its future in the Senate was uncertain. Some senators, including Washington Democrat Maria Cantwell and powerful committee chairs like Warner, were considering changes to the process that could significantly slow the bill's progress.
The House bill would give ByteDance six months to sell TikTok. The senators wanted the bill to spell out the government's national security concerns about TikTok and make it clear to the court how the bill would be justified.
As the Senate works on the bill, TikTok reached out to lawmakers' offices and spent at least $3 million on advertising to protect itself. Commercials depicting users such as nuns and ranchers making a living and building community through the app have covered airwaves in major states.
TikTok has also received support from conservative groups such as the Club for Growth and the Cato Institute, both backed by the app's prominent investor Jeffrey Yass. Liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union say the bill violates Americans' First Amendment rights.
A Club for Growth spokesperson said Mr Yass had “never asked the club to take a position or take any action on his behalf”.
Some wealthy groups on the right have rallied behind the bill. One is Parents United for America, backed by conservative activist Leonard Leo, which ran an ad campaign in March called “TikTok is Toxic.” A spokesperson for Mr Leo said he was “proud to support” the group's efforts.
Others in Silicon Valley spoke out in favor of the bill, including venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and Jacob Helberg, senior policy advisor at Palantir CEO.
Bijan Coomaraye, a lawyer in Mr. Scalise's office who helped draft the bill, said the main reason the process was kept secret for so long was to keep lobbyists away.
“None of the companies had outside influence or helped draft this bill,” he said.
new chance
Once this bill was introduced in the Senate, a new opportunity presented itself. House Speaker Mike Johnson last week announced an attempt to pass foreign aid to countries including Ukraine. To ensure his votes, Mr. Johnson took the unusual step of attaching a package of bills popular with Republicans, including the TikTok bill.
The House of Representatives forced a vote, leaving senators panicking. Cantwell's office asked the House to make multiple edits to the bill, according to people familiar with the matter.
House members made just one change the Senate wanted. The bill included in the aid package extends the deadline for selling TikTok from six months to nine months. The president could add another 90 days if ByteDance makes progress toward selling TikTok.
“The most important thing is to have enough time to influence sales,” Cantwell says.
The change was enough. Late Tuesday, the Senate passed the bill by an overwhelming vote of 79-18. President Biden is expected to sign the bill as soon as Wednesday.
