T.A.C.O. Trump once again faces TikTok deadline. The accounts of 9.5 million Floridians hang in the balance. Oh, the drama!
News and views for Florida's Left Coast. It's a busy week ahead so check out some of the items that should be on your calendar this week.
The clock is TikToking
More than 9.5 million Floridians—52 percent of the state’s adult population—could see their ability to use TikTok disrupted this week. Unless:
TikTok owner ByteDance agrees to sell the app.
Or President Donald Trump grants yet another deadline extension.
This Wednesday—Sept. 17—is the latest ultimatum the United States has given the Chinese company ByteDance to sell the wildly popular social media program under the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” that originally was to begin being enforced on January 19.
While Trump, along with a bipartisan coalition of Republicans and Democrats, had at one point favored banning TikTok, after receiving support from some users during his re-election campaign, Trump changed his mind.
So, by executive order, he extended the deadline for ByteDance to sell. That didn’t happen, so the deadline was extended again. Which is one of the reasons Trump earned the T.A.C.O. nickname—Trump. Always. Chickens. Out.
Irrespective of whether you like, don’t like, or don’t care about TikTok, Trump’s use of executive orders to thwart the law has come under criticism as an illegal abuse of presidential power.
And it also begs the question: If TikTok is so dangerous to national security, why have we allowed it to operate unfettered for the past eight months? Maybe not so dangerous, you think?
Anyway, if the latest deadline arrives without an agreement or an extension, Google and Apple would be required to remove the app from their stores, internet service providers would be banned from servicing the app, and without updates, the app would degrade. TikTok itself could just shut it down.
So, where’s Trump’s head on this? A reporter asked him that question Sunday, and this was his response:
"We may let it die, or we may, I don't know, it depends, up to China. It doesn't matter too much. I'd like to do it for the kids that like it."
It’s more than kids who like it here in Florida. Here’s what TikTok demographics look like based on the platform’s Ads Manager data, which focuses on users over the age of 18:
18–24 years: 1.62 million users (17% of Florida's adult TikTok audience).
25–34 years: 2.16 million users (23%).
35–44 years: 2.18 million users (23%).
45–54 years: 1.53 million users (16%).
55+ years: 1.96 million users (21%).
Chinese and American officials were engaged in trade talks in Madrid over the weekend with TikTok’s future part of the conversation. What happens next? Will Trump chicken out again? Will legions of TikTok users (170 million in the U.S.) find their social media lives disrupted? Oh, the drama!
There’s far more than TikTok on this week’s news agenda. Things to watch include:
Tyler Robinson, the alleged killer of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, will make his first court appearance this week where, it is hoped, some of the many unanswered questions swirling around Kirk’s murder will be addressed. As Joyce Vance notes in her Civil Discourse column this morning, because he will be charged in state court, the proceedings may be televised since Utah, like many states, allows cameras in the courtroom. A memorial for Kirk will be held in Phoenix on Sunday.
The Federal Reserve Board will kick off its September meeting on Tuesday. Will the Fed lower interest rates as expected given recent data that shows Trump’s tariffs, increasing unemployment, and rising inflation are causing havoc in the economy?
Will Florida drug stores get guidance on the new Covid booster vaccinations? That will be determined in a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Committee on Immunization Practices, which meets starting Thursday. The panel’s members have been replaced by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., so what they recommend on how the vaccine may be administered is being closely watched.
Donald Trump will be traveling to the United Kingdom this week, and in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, security precautions, always intense, are being redoubled. Any possible threat is diminished by the U.K.’s strict gun laws. The U.S. gun death rate is more than 100 times higher than in Great Britain.
Will the federal government shut down? That could happen by the end of this month if Republicans and Democrats can’t come together on the budget. Expect lots of finger-pointing and noise out of Washington in the coming days.
National Hispanic Heritage Month begins today, a time to recognize the significant contributions Hispanic/Latino Americans make to our economy and culture.
And, lest we forget, this coming Friday is Talk Like a Pirate Day. I’ll have a complete guide on pirate expressions you can use to impress your friends later this week.
J.C. Bruce, journalist and author, is the founder of Tropic Press. He holds dual citizenship in the United States of America and his native Florida. Forward this email to your friends. They will love you for it.
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