Trump joins TikTok and calls it 'an honour.' As U.S. president, he once tried to ban the app
CTV
Donald Trump has joined the popular video-sharing app TikTok, a platform he once tried to ban while in the White House, and posted from a UFC fight two days after he became the first former president and presumptive major party nominee in U.S. history to be found guilty on felony charges.
Donald Trump has joined the popular video-sharing app TikTok, a platform he once tried to ban while in the White House, and posted from a UFC fight two days after he became the first former U.S. president and presumptive major party nominee in U.S. history to be found guilty on felony charges.
“It's an honour,” Trump said in the TikTok video, which features footage of him waving to fans and posing for selfies at the Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Newark, N.J., on Saturday night. The video ends with Trump telling the camera: “That was a good walk-on, right?”
By Sunday morning, Trump had amassed more than 1.1 million followers on the platform and the post had garnered more than one million likes and 24 million views.
“We will leave no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement about the campaign's decision to join the platform.
“There’s no place better than a UFC event to launch President Trump’s Tik Tok, where he received a hero’s welcome and thousands of fans cheered him on," he added.
Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation in April that could ban TikTok in the U.S., even as his campaign joined in February and has tried to work with influencers.
Trump received an enthusiastic welcome at the fight at Newark's Prudential Center, where the crowd broke into chants of “We love Trump!” and another insulting Biden with an expletive.
