In a cringeworthy interview with CNBC, Donald Trump stumbled through a bizarre explanation of his shifting stance on banning TikTok, a complete 180 from his hardline position as President. Throughout the interview, Trump struggled to provide a clear, logical explanation for his abrupt reversal on banning TikTok. Instead, he resorted to his trademark word salad, stringing together loosely connected thoughts and grievances, reminiscent of his speeches at MAGA rallies.
When pressed by host Andrew Ross Sorkin on why he now opposes banning TikTok after previously calling it a grave national security threat, Trump launched into a barely comprehensible word salad. In a rambling babble that's even more pronounced than usual, Trump boasted that he could have banned TikTok while president but left the decision to a feckless Congress.
"I had it done," Trump told a baffled Sorkin. "And then Congress said, well, they never, they they ultimately, usually fail, (laughs) you know, they are gooch–like, extremely political and they're extremely subject to people called lobbyists who happen to be very, very talented, very good and very rich." (gooch-like?)
However, as The New Republic reports, Trump's about-face likely has more to do with the influence of billionaire investor Jeff Yass, who owns a staggering 15 percent stake in TikTok worth billions and recently paid a visit to Mar-a-Lago to whisper in the ex-president's ear.
In one of his most baffling verbal contortions, Trump attempted to argue that TikTok poses privacy risks while simultaneously fretting that banning it would benefit Facebook, a company he now deems "enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media." Trump's nonsensical tirade included this gem: "What Facebah-book did with lock boxes, with a $500 million, Zuckerberg's, lock boxes that he put in. I mean, I considered illegal. But, you know, so they, you know, they put people in jail when they spend, they put people in jail when they spent more than $5,600 in a campaign."
The New Republic suggests that Yass may have convinced an easily swayed Trump that TikTok's alleged pro-Palestinian content could damage President Biden's standing with young voters. Trump denied that his recent meeting with Yass influenced his brazen flip-flop, insisting they only briefly discussed school choice. But many, including former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, see Yass's fingerprints all over the ex-president's shameless reversal, which reeks of self-serving opportunism rather than principled policymaking.
