Trump says he may delay TikTok ban once again

It’s starting to feel like the TikTok ban that called wolf.

In an interview with Kristen Welker from NBC’s Meet the Press, President Donald Trump said he’d consider delaying the TikTok ban for a third time if a deal isn’t struck before the deadline.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said.

This fits with Trump’s TikTok-related actions since he took office for the second time. In January, he delayed the TikTok ban for 90 days and, once that deadline wasn’t met due to a confluence of issues including a hefty tariff on Chinese goods, he delayed it once more. This, of course, is in stark contrast to Trump’s take on TikTok during his first presidential term, in which he tried to ban the app. We all contain multitudes, or something.

“My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress,” Trump wrote in a TruthSocial post on April 4, one of the days he extended the TikTok ban. “The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days.”

This comes just two months left on TikTok’s deadline. We have access to the app in the U.S. through June 19, at which time there looks like there are three options: Trump extends the deadline once again, TikTok actually gets banned in the U.S., or TikTok divests from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.