Trump super PAC joins TikTok

Former President Trump’s super PAC has joined TikTok, the app that Trump’s administration previously attempted to ban, as it seeks to spread its message across various platforms.

“MAGA INC will not cede any platform to Joe Biden and the Democrats who are trying to destroy our country,” Taylor Budowich, CEO of MAGA Inc., posted on the social platform X. “We will ensure President Trump’s America First agenda is brought to every corner of the internet and every precinct of this country.”

The super PAC is using the handle “@MAGA” on the app. Its first videos tout Trump’s economic record and attack independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a “longtime Democrat and a liberal.”

The Biden campaign has been on TikTok for months and has worked with influencers on the platform to spread the president’s message and agenda, viewing it as a way to reach younger voters.

The campaign has said it will remain on the app even after President Biden signed legislation that could lead to a ban on TikTok several months down the road.

The Washington Post reported this week that Trump’s presidential campaign was weighing whether to join the popular app, with advisers split over whether the benefits were worth the potential political backlash of joining a platform some Republicans have equated with Chinese spyware.

The former president issued an executive order in 2020 seeking to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell its U.S. assets, though the order was later blocked in court.

But Trump has since changed his tune, suggesting a ban on TikTok could benefit Facebook, a company the former president has a long-running feud with.

Facebook banned Trump in January 2021 in the wake of the Capitol riots, during which hundreds of his supporters attempted to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. The former president spent months spreading false claims about the election on social media in the lead-up to the attack on the Capitol.