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President-elect Donald Trump says he wants service providers like Apple and Google to put TikTok back online in the US, and proposed creating a joint venture<\/a> where the US owns 50 percent of the app.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI\u2019m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday. \u201cI will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law\u2019s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Part of the motivation appears to be his own inauguration on Monday, which Trump says \u201cAmericans deserve to see.\u201d He called the joint venture idea an \u201cinitial thought\u201d and says \u201cBy doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up.\u00a0 Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok.\u00a0 With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Shortly after the ban took effect, Republican lawmakers poured cold water on the idea that Donald Trump will be able to halt the TikTok ban without a sale of the app when he resumes the presidency Monday. Trump had previously floated exercising a 90-day extension<\/a> written into the law to lengthen the deadline for a sale, and reportedly considered issuing an executive order<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But with even Trump\u2019s Republican allies in Congress casting doubt on the idea that a pause on the ban is viable without a bona fide deal that rids TikTok of its foreign adversary ownership, it\u2019s unlikely that service providers like Apple and Google will risk the billions in fines they could face should a court rule that Trump is wrong about his powers to halt the law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe will enforce the law,\u201d House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d on Sunday. \u201cWhen President Trump issued the Truth post and said, \u2018save TikTok,\u2019 the way we read that is that he\u2019s going to try to force along a true divestiture.\u201d Johnson added that, \u201cthe only way to extend that is if there\u2019s an actual deal in the works.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cNow that the law has taken effect, there\u2019s no legal basis for any kind of \u2018extension\u2019 of its effective date,\u201d Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) say in a statement. \u201cFor TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law\u2019s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n