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Trump is a member of TikTok and calls it an honor.’ While president, he attempted to block the app’s video sharing feature.

by JILL COLVIN, WILL WEISSERT and MEG KINNARD

02/06/2024

Donald Trump has joined the wildly popular video-sharing application TikTok the platform he tried to ban in the White House, and posted photos from the UFC battle two days following the day Trump became the first ex-president and presumed presidential candidate of a major party to be found guilty in U.S. history to be found guilty of the felony charge.

“It’s an honour,” Trump said in the TikTok video, which shows footage of him greeting people and taking selfies during the Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Newark, New Jersey, on the night of Saturday. The video closes by Trump saying to the camera “That seemed like a decent walk, wasn’t it?”

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Trump had amassed more than 1.1 million followers on his platform, and the post was viewed by over 1 million Likes and more than 24 million views.

“We will never leave a front undefended, and this is the ongoing outreach to a newer audience who consumes pro-Trump and anti-Biden material,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung made clear in a statement regarding the decision of the campaign to sign up with the social media platform.

“There’s no better venue than an UFC event to officially launch the president’s Tik Tok and where Trump was greeted with an ovation from the crowd and a throng of fans were cheering him on,” the president said.

Democratic Presidency Joe Biden signed legislation in April, which could prohibit TikTok within the U.S., even as Biden’s campaign embraced it in February and attempted to engage with influencers.

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Trump received a warm reception in the Newark’s Prudential Center, where the crowd began to chant “We Love Trump!” and another insulting Biden by using an expletive.

This was his first public appearance since the jury of New York found him guilty on Thursday of 34 counts of faking business records as part of a plan to influence the 2016 election through concealing hush money payments to a porn star who claimed that she and Trump had sexual relations. Trump has said that he was not guilty and is planning to contest the decision. He is scheduled to be sentenced on the 11th of July.

In his presidential run for president, Trump has used appearances at UFC fights to portray a picture of power and to attract voters who don’t monitor politics or traditional media sources. It’s part of a larger campaign to reach out to minorities and young people specifically Latino and Black males.

TikTok is operated by Beijing-based ByteDance It is a second chance to connect with potential voters. It has around 170 million users across the U.S., most of which are younger. an age group that is particularly difficult to target due to their aversion to television.

In his presidency, Trump attempted to block TikTok by a presidential order which stated that “the proliferation across the United States of mobile applications created by and controlled” by Chinese companies posed an attack on national security. The justices have blocked the decision following TikTok filed a lawsuit.

The FBI as well as the Federal Communications Commission have cautioned that ByteDance may share information about users like the history of browsing, locations, and biometric identifiers to China’s government. TikTok claims that it hasn’t done this and will not have done so if asked.

The platform was a popular subject of discussion in the 2024 GOP primary the majority of candidates abstaining from the platform. Many such as former Vice President Mike Pence, called for TikTok to be shut down from the U.S. due to its connection to China

Trump declared earlier this year that he believed TikTok was the risk of national security however, he was against blocking it, as it could help the competition, Facebook, which he continues to attack over his defeat in the 2020 election to Biden.

“Frankly there are many users on TikTok who are enthralled by it. There are lots of youngsters on TikTok who can’t live with using it.” Trump told CNBC.

The law that was signed by Biden allows ByteDance the opportunity to dispose of its business and a possibility of an further three months if the sale is currently in process. If it doesn’t happen, TikTok will be shut down. Biden has banned the app from the majority of government devices in December 2022.

The campaign to reelect him still utilizes the app, and it was added to on the night of Super Bowl in February. Aides say that in the increasingly dispersed media landscape it is essential for the campaign to communicate its message to voters through the most diverse platforms possible as possible, which includes TikTok along with WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Biden’s “bidenhq” account has over 330,000 fans as well as 4.5 million”likes.

Trump’s appearance in Saturday’s fight occurred after he had been interviewed on the Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends Weekend” which aired on Sunday.

In the interview, Trump said he was “OK” in the face of possible jail time or even house arrest, stating that it was “the way things are .”’

He also said that people might not agree with this kind of penalty for an ex-president currently trying to get back into his White House.

“I do not know if people would be able to stand for it for what it is, you know. I’m not certain that the public would be able to stand this,” he said. “I believe it’s difficult for people to swallow. There’s an arbitrary point, there’s an threshold at which you can break.”

Trump, as he has repeatedly throughout the trial has claimed his innocence, saying Trump “did completely nothing unlawful.”

The president was asked about what his wife, the ex-first lady Melania Trump, is reacting to the news.

“She’s fine. But I’m sure it’s difficult for her. It’s true that she’s fine. But, as you can imagine she’s required to read the whole thing,” he said.

She was not alongside Trump in court at any time during his trial of seven weeks.