The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act easily passed in the House.
Immediately after it advanced, senators who have been vocal about the risks TikTok poses called for a vote in the upper chamber, and the White House urged “swift action” in the Senate.
“We are glad to see this bill move forward,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One.
“We will look to the Senate to take swift action,” she added.
President Biden last week said he would sign the bill if passed by Congress.
In the Senate, it may be more difficult for lawmakers to pass the legislation. Any detractors on either side of the aisle could risk supporters’ getting the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass in the split chamber.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has yet to take a stance on the legislation. He said the Senate “will review the legation when it comes over from the House.”
Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the top members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are leading the push for the bill to make its way through the Senate.
“We are united in our concern about the national security threat posed by TikTok — a platform with enormous power to influence and divide Americans whose parent company ByteDance remains legally required to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party,” Warner and Rubio said in a joint statement immediately after it passed the House.
“We were encouraged by today’s strong bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, and look forward to working together to get this bill passed through the Senate and signed into law,” they added.
But other lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have also come out agains the bill complicated its path forward.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
