TikTok's fate in the United States will rest in the hands of the Senate after House lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill to ban Chinese parent company ByteDance from selling TikTok, after President Joe Biden said he would sign the bill, called the Protecting Americans from Controlled Applications by Hostile Foreign Powers Act, if both chambers advance it.
While the bill passed the House just a week after it was introduced, the Senate will face an entirely different set of challenges.
First, there is no companion bill drafted yet, so the legislation is almost at the starting line in the Senate. Even if a companion bill is introduced, Senate rules may make it difficult to maintain enough support (60 out of 100 senators) to pass the bill, and it only takes one senator to stall the legislation to prevent it from moving forward quickly.
Senator Rand Paul said he might be willing to do so. He told The Washington Post before the House vote that he would block any bill he believed was unconstitutional and said Congress should not "try to take away the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans."
A lengthy legal process could leave room for skeptics and lobbying money. Last year, just before TikTok CEO Shou Chew testified before the House of Representatives, the Senate introduced the RESTRICT Act with fanfare—another attempt to ban TikTok. While the bill initially attracted attention, it slowly faded as opponents criticized it. Ultimately, the Senate failed to pass the bill.
TikTok reportedly scrambled to send users to call House offices over the past week in response to the unexpected bill, but the calls seemed to only annoy staff members and left some lawmakers with the impression that this was just another example of how TikTok leverages its influence machine.
Not even former President Donald Trump's opposition appeared to stop House Republicans from voting in favor of the measure. There were 352 members in support, only 65 members opposed, and one member voted in favor.
But the Senate may be a different story.
There are already signs that Trump's comments that a TikTok ban would only help Meta could sway some Republican senators. Senator Lindsey Graham told "Meet the Press" that he feels "conflicted" and doesn't know how to vote on a similar measure in the Senate. Graham had previously supported the RESTRICT Act, which sought different legal avenues that could also lead to a ban on TikTok.
But Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who has supported action on TikTok's ties to China, said on X after the House vote: "The Senate should take up this bill immediately."
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) said in a joint statement that they were "encouraged by today's strong bipartisan vote in the House and look forward to working together to get this bill passed in the Senate and signed into law."
Given that Warner is the lead sponsor of the LIMITS Act, his willingness to support the House bill is significant. Warner's support for the new House bill shows he is willing to seek other ways to deal with the threat posed to him by TikTok's ownership.
Other Democrats seemed more wary.
Sen. Ed Markey wrote on
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has so far remained noncommittal about the path the bill might take. Schumer issued a statement after the House passed the bill, saying that "the Senate will review the bill after the House passes it."
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