Former President Donald Trump said that Facebook should be given the same treatment as TikTok, saying that Facebook is “worse than TikTok by a lot.”
In an interview with Fox News’s MediaBuzz that aired Sunday, Trump played down his defense of TikTok, saying that his call not to ban it “wasn’t a demand.” Trump also said while he was OK with a ban, he believes Facebook is a bigger threat.
“There’s a danger to banning it, as you know, freedom of speech … many different problems,” Trump said. “But here’s what I did — I found Facebook to be extremely dishonest, and what would happen is if you ban Tiktok, if you take it away … those people are going to go into Facebook, and Facebook, in my opinion, was worse than TikTok by a lot.”
“What I would like to see is if you’re going to do it to TikTok, do it to Facebook,” he added.
Trump’s comments about the apps come as the Senate weighs whether or not to bring the House-passed bill that would force the sale of TikTok from its China-based owner ByteDance or be banned in the U.S. to the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has not decided whether to bring the measure up for a vote, according to the New York Times.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Trump also waved off concerns that his change in position was linked to a meeting with billionaire Jeff Yass, who owns a substantial portion of TikTok. The former president said he was unaware that Yass had any relation to TikTok.