Trouble in Trump World? Convicted Trump buddy Steve Bannon is now saying what everyone has known for decades: wave money at Trump and he'll do anything, say anything. Even if he said the opposite yesterday.
Steve Bannon Suggests Donald Trump Has Been Bought
Steve Bannon, the one-time adviser to Donald Trump, suggested on Saturday that the former president was paid off after a shift in stance on TikTok.
TikTok, the immensely popular video-sharing app known for its predominantly young audience, has once again come under scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers. The app is currently owned by Chinese tech company, ByteDance, which has spurred significant suspicion that its abundance of user data is being furnished to the Chinese government.
While ByteDance and TikTok have dismissed these accusations, lawmakers have continued to consider their options. A bipartisan bill put forward by members of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party last week would work to "incentivize divestment of TikTok" by ByteDance by blocking it from appearing in American app stores and granting Executive Branch authority to take similar action in the future against social media companies operated by a "foreign adversary."
"If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck [CEO Mark Zuckerberg] will double their business," the former president wrote. "I don't want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!"
In response to this post, reports noted that the seeming shift in stance from Trump came after a meeting with Jeff Yass, a conservative hedge fund manager who has a $33 billion stake in TikTok. Yass, according to Intelligencer, has been allegedly threatening to pull support from GOP lawmakers who back the bipartisan divestment bill.
Bannon, who led Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign and served as a White House adviser for the first several months of Trump's presidency, took to Gettr to make his suspicions about the situation clear.
"Simple: Yass Coin," he wrote in a post that included a link to an Axios story about Trump's flip on TikTok, without providing further evidence. Newsweek has not seen any evidence that Trump's meeting with Yass and his stance on TikTok are connected.
Steve Bannon Suggests Donald Trump Has Been Bought
Steve Bannon, the one-time adviser to Donald Trump, suggested on Saturday that the former president was paid off after a shift in stance on TikTok.
TikTok, the immensely popular video-sharing app known for its predominantly young audience, has once again come under scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers. The app is currently owned by Chinese tech company, ByteDance, which has spurred significant suspicion that its abundance of user data is being furnished to the Chinese government.
While ByteDance and TikTok have dismissed these accusations, lawmakers have continued to consider their options. A bipartisan bill put forward by members of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party last week would work to "incentivize divestment of TikTok" by ByteDance by blocking it from appearing in American app stores and granting Executive Branch authority to take similar action in the future against social media companies operated by a "foreign adversary."
"If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck [CEO Mark Zuckerberg] will double their business," the former president wrote. "I don't want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!"
In response to this post, reports noted that the seeming shift in stance from Trump came after a meeting with Jeff Yass, a conservative hedge fund manager who has a $33 billion stake in TikTok. Yass, according to Intelligencer, has been allegedly threatening to pull support from GOP lawmakers who back the bipartisan divestment bill.
Bannon, who led Trump's successful 2016 presidential campaign and served as a White House adviser for the first several months of Trump's presidency, took to Gettr to make his suspicions about the situation clear.
"Simple: Yass Coin," he wrote in a post that included a link to an Axios story about Trump's flip on TikTok, without providing further evidence. Newsweek has not seen any evidence that Trump's meeting with Yass and his stance on TikTok are connected.