After paying lip service to the TikTok generation since his re-election, President Donald Trump has established an official executive account on the app. The new White House TikTok account, established earlier this week, has already reached more than 150,000 followers through a smattering of soundbites shared directly from the President’s desk.
The first video on the new account featured a montage of Trump footage. “I am your voice,” Trump says in the 27-second clip, which has already received more than 1.2 million views.
Other uploads have repurposed Trump statements as TikTok audio snippets that can be repurposed by the President’s supporters. Those clips are appended to one another back-to-back, with no narrative through-line. The message is clear: If you’re looking for a repository of Trumpisms to use in your videos, the White House TikTok account is the place to go.
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@whitehouse‘I was the hunted, and now I’m the hunter.’
Arguably, some of Trump’s detractors could find uses for that audio as well. Those critics will find it harder to use the new account’s other videos, which regurgitate executive talking points on subjects like urban violence.
To be clear, this is not Trump’s first rodeo on TikTok. The leader of the MAGA movement employed the ByteDance-owned app on the campaign trail as he solidified his alliance with young people and creators. That account has been dormant since his reelection, but the new White House hub is not much different from Trump’s previous TikTok home base.
The Trump administration’s ideas about TikTok seem to be similar to the views held by the preceding presidency. Joe Biden made his way onto TikTok during his ill-fated reelection campaign, and many of the videos he shared there were linked to the “Dark Brandon” memes that became popular during his stint in the Oval Office.
Biden’s TikTok use took a backseat when he moved to limit Americans’ access to the app. Trump may soon find himself facing a similar conundrum. After attempting to curb the app’s influence during his first term, Trump reversed course during his reelection campaign, promising to overturn the Biden-era “divest-or-ban” law.
Keeping that promise has been easier said than done. Trump has granted multiple reprieves to prevent the TikTok ban from taking effect, but even with more time to negotiate, ByteDance and Washington legislators have been unable to agree on a deal that would give the U.S. a measure of control over TikTok’s operations. Trump has looked to put pressure on ByteDance by claiming (through his deputies) that the latest deal extension will be the last one, but it’s unclear if China is even willing to play ball with potential TikTok buyers.
If the dealmaking effort turns sour, what will happen to the new White House account? Will it stay active, or will Trump’s animosity cause him to swear off TikTok once again? The future is quite cloudy, so purveyors of MAGA memes should get to work now while they still can.
