President-elect Trump says he should be the one to make the decision on whether TikTok can continue operating in the United States due to the unique national security and First Amendment issues raised by this case, he said in an amicus brief Friday.

Trump’s argument comes in an amicus brief “supporting neither party,” filed Friday, weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on Jan. 10, 2025 on the law that requires a divestment of TikTok from foreign adversary control.

TIKTOK DIVESTMENT COULD BE ‘DEAL OF THE CENTURY’ FOR TRUMP, HOUSE CHINA COMMITTEE CHAIR SAYS

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a company based in Beijing and connected to the Chinese Communist Party. 

“Today, President Donald J. Trump has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Court to extend the deadline that would cause TikTok’s imminent shutdown, and allow President Trump the opportunity to resolve the issue in a way that saves TikTok and preserves American national security once he resumes office as President of the United States on January 20, 2025,” Trump spokesman and incoming White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital.

“President Donald J. Trump (“President Trump”) is the 45th and soon to be the 47th President of the United States of America,” the brief states. “On January 20, 2025, President Trump will assume responsibility for the United States’ national security, foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.”

Trump argues that “this case presents an unprecedented, novel, and difficult tension between free-speech rights on one side, and foreign policy and national-security concerns on the other.” “As the incoming Chief Executive, President Trump has a particularly powerful interest in and responsibility for those national-security and foreign-policy questions, and he is the right constitutional actor to resolve the dispute through political means.

President Trump also has a unique interest in the First Amendment issues raised in this case,” the brief states. “Through his historic victory on November 5, 2024, President Trump received a powerful electoral mandate from American voters to protect the free-speech rights of all Americans—including the 170 million Americans who use TikTok.”

“President Trump is uniquely situated to vindicate these interests, because ‘the President and the Vice President of the United States are the only elected officials who represent all the voters in the Nation,’” the brief continues.

WILL TRUMP WHITE HOUSE RESCUE TIKTOK FROM LOOMING BAN? PRESIDENT-ELECT HAS DONE A 180 ON THE APP

Trump argues that due to his “overarching responsibility for the United States’ national security and foreign policy— President Trump opposes banning TikTok in the United States at this juncture, and seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office.”

“On September 4, 2024, President Trump posted on Truth Social, ‘FOR ALL THOSE THAT WANT TO SAVE TIK TOK IN AMERICA, VOTE TRUMP!’” the brief states.

Trump argues that he “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government—concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged.”

“Indeed, President Trump’s first Term was highlighted by a series of policy triumphs achieved through historic deals, and he has a great prospect of success in this latest national security and foreign policy endeavor,” the brief states.

Trump notes that the 270-day deadline imposed by the new TikTok law “expires on January 19, 2025—one day before President Trump will assume office as the 47th President of the United States.”

The TikTok Inc. building is seen in Culver City, Calif., on March 17, 2023.  (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

That legislation, which was signed into law in the spring, requires a sale of TikTok from ByteDance by Jan. 19. If ByteDance does not divest by the deadline, Google and Apple are no longer able to feature TikTok in their app stores in the U.S.

“This unfortunate timing interferes with President Trump’s ability to manage the United States’ foreign policy and to pursue a resolution to both protect national security and save a social-media platform that provides a popular vehicle for 170 million Americans to exercise their core First Amendment rights,” the brief states. “The Act imposes the timing constraint, moreover, without specifying any compelling government interest in that particular deadline.”

Trump points to the law, which “contemplates a 90-day extension to the deadline under certain specified circumstances.”

JOURNALISTS, COMMENTATORS RESPOND AS TRUMP JOINS TIKTOK, RAPIDLY GAINS 10X MORE FOLLOWERS THAN BIDEN

Supreme Court Justices said they will hold a special session on Jan. 10 to hear oral arguments in the case — an expedited timeline that will allow them to consider the case just nine days before the Jan. 19 ban is slated to take effect. The law allows the president to extend the deadline by up to 90 days if ByteDance is in the process of divesting.

“President Trump, therefore, has a compelling interest as the incoming embodiment of the Executive Branch in seeing the statutory deadline stayed to allow his incoming Administration the opportunity to seek a negotiated resolution of these questions,” the brief states. “If successful, such a resolution would obviate the need for this Court to decide the historically challenging First Amendment question presented here on the current, highly expedited basis.”

TikTok and ByteDance filed an emergency application to the high court earlier this month asking justices to temporarily block the law from being enforced while it appealed a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

A view of the U.S. Supreme Court Building.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Lawyers for TikTok have argued that the law passed earlier this year is a First Amendment violation, noting in their Supreme Court request that “Congress’s unprecedented attempt to single out applicants and bar them from operating one of the most significant speech platforms in this nation” and “presents grave constitutional problems that this court likely will not allow to stand.”

TikTok, last year, created its “Project Texas” initiative, which is dedicated to addressing concerns about U.S. national security.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew says “Project Texas” creates a stand-alone version of the TikTok platform for the U.S. isolated on servers in Oracle’s U.S. cloud environment. It was developed by CFIUS and cost the company approximately $1.5 billion to implement.

Chew has argued that TikTok is not beholden to any one country, though executives in the past have admitted that Chinese officials had access to Americans’ data even when U.S.-based TikTok officials did not. TikTok claims that the new initiative keeps U.S. user data safe, and told Fox News Digital that data is managed “by Americans, in America.”

Trump has signaled support for TikTok. Earlier this month, he met with Chew at Mar-a-Lago, telling reporters during a press conference ahead of the meeting that his incoming administration will “take a look at TikTok” and the looming U.S. ban.

“I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump told reporters.

WASHINGTON —  After dealing devastating blows to militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel is now directing its military prowess at another key force backed by Iran: the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

On Friday, Israel said it had attacked Yemen’s international airport in the capital of Sanaa as well as several power plants and seaports, all under Houthi control. That followed Houthi firing of rockets into Israel, one hitting a school. And later Friday, the Houthis said they had targeted Israel’s airport, although that missile was apparently intercepted.

At least nine people were reported killed in Yemen and 16 were injured in Israel in attacks and counterattacks over the last week or so as the two sides ramped up their long-simmering conflict.

The Israeli attack on Yemen’s airport on Thursday took place as the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, waited to board a flight. He was not injured but United Nations officials said aid supplies destined for besieged Yemenis would be interrupted. Israel said the airport was being used by Iran to smuggle weapons to the Houthis.

Israel sought and will receive a rare hearing at the U.N. Security Council on Monday to discuss the Houthi conflict, Israel’s ambassador to the world body, Danny Danon, told The Times. Normally other countries call for sessions to criticize Israel, but Israel was able to take advantage of the U.S. position as the rotating chair of the Security Council.

Danon said he would ask the council to formally condemn the Houthis but remained skeptical of any meaningful action, especially given the veto power held by China and Russia.

“We intend to point out to Iran and the Houthis what happened to Hamas,” Danon said in a telephone interview from New York, site of U.N. headquarters. “It seems that the Houthis have not yet understood what happens to those who try to harm the State of Israel. … We are not playing around.”

The battle in Yemen has often taken a back seat to other explosive, roiling conflicts in the Middle East. For more than a decade, the Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and other Western powers, has fought Houthi rebels backed by Iran. More than a quarter of a million people have died in attacks and because of food shortages and other humanitarian crises.

The Houthis are one piece of the so-called axis of resistance, a constellation of Iran proxies arrayed around Israel and dedicated to its destruction as well as their own nationalist causes.

Houthi supporters attend an anti-Israel rally in Sanaa, Yemen, on Friday.

(Osamah Abdulrahman / Associated Press)

Over the last 14 months, Israel has pounded Hamas in the Gaza Strip, killing tens of thousands of fighters and civilian Palestinians. The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.

This fall, Israel destroyed much of the leadership and infrastructure of Hezbollah, a militant and political faction in Lebanon that had increased rocket attacks into Israel that it says are in support of Hamas.

Israel has also exchanged missile barrages with the main backer of Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran. Airstrikes reportedly crippled much of Iran’s defensive capabilities.

Separately, Israel’s other Iran-backed nemesis, the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, collapsed this month under pressure from an assortment of rebel groups, the strongest backed by Turkey.

“The Middle East has changed,” Danon said.

What remained were the Houthis. Also claiming they were acting in support of Hamas in the Gaza war, they launched a series of missile attacks on ships traversing the Red Sea as part of a major commerce chain.

The Biden administration also launched airstrikes on the Houthis earlier this year in response to the attacks on sea vessels and has tried to assemble a collection of countries to protect shipping lanes from the Houthis.

“We’ve tried to raise the consciousness of countries, not only in the region but well beyond, of the damage that the Houthi actions are having to international commerce in real and meaningful ways,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said at the Council on Foreign Relations this month.

Smoke rises from the area around the airport after an airstrike, as seen from Sanaa, Yemen, on Thursday.

(Osamah Abdulrahman / Associated Press)

”The rise of the Houthis … has gotten them to a place where they have assets that have built up, that they have not been shy about using,” Blinken said. “My concern … is that even when we get to the point where the conflict in Gaza is over, [the Houthis] may well continue, because they put themselves on the world stage.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to an Israeli television news channel this week, made clear that the Houthis in Yemen are the next front line.

“We will strike them to the bitter end, until they learn,” Netanyahu said. “Hamas learned, Hezbollah learned, and Syria learned. The Houthis will learn, too.”

President Biden is seen in newly uncovered photos meeting with Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates in China while he served as vice president, bringing further scrutiny to his claim he “never” discussed business with his son.

The photos, obtained by conservative-leaning America First Legal through litigation against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), appear to show then-Vice President Biden introducing his son to Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Vice President Li Yuanchao. Other photos show Joe Biden posing with Hunter’s business associates from BHR Partners, including Jonathan Li and Ming Xue.

“These images shed light on the connections between then-Vice President Biden, Hunter and his Chinese business associates, and Chinese government officials including President Xi Jinping,” America First Legal said in a press release this week. “Lawyers and representatives for President Biden and President Obama delayed NARA’s release of these photographs, as they did with other records, until after Election Day.”

“These photos corroborate the House Oversight Committee’s investigative findings that Hunter Biden arranged for his father to meet with Jonathan Li and other BHR executives during the 2013 China trip, where ‘Mr. Li sought— and received — access to Vice President Biden’s political power, including, for example, preferential access to then-U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus … a condition of Hunter Biden and his associates participating in the BHR deal,’” America First Legal wrote.

HUNTER BIDEN: A LOOK AT HOW THE SAGA SPANNING OVER SIX YEARS UNFOLDED

America First Legal also wrote that, according to the committee’s investigation, “the Biden Family benefited from their business dealings with BHR.”

Hunter Biden was asked earlier this year by the House Oversight Committee about his meetings while traveling to Asia with his father.

“When we returned from an event to the hotel, there was a rope line, and Jonathan Li was in the lobby of the hotel where I was going to meet him for coffee,” Hunter Biden said at the time. “In that line, I introduced my dad to Jonathan Li and a friend of his, and they shook hands and I believe probably took a photograph. And then my father went up to his room, and I went to have coffee with Jonathan Li.”

Hunter Biden added that he didn’t tell his father “anything” about who Li was.

Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any role in his son’s businesses. 

HUNTER BIDEN WAS PAID $100K THROUGH JOINT VENTURE WITH CHINESE ENERGY FIRM, EX-ASSOCIATE TESTIFIED

Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, China President Xi and former U.S. China Ambassador Max Baucus (America First Legal)

“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Joe Biden said on the presidential campaign trail in 2019.

But emails sent to and from Hunter Biden have cast doubt on that, including a 2017 email obtained by Fox News that shows Hunter requesting keys for Joe and Jill Biden, along with his uncle, Jim Biden, for space he planned to share with an “emissary” to the chairman of a now-bankrupt Chinese energy company.

In another 2017 email also obtained by Fox News, Biden wrote to the same Chinese energy company’s chairman extending “best wishes from the entire Biden family,” and urging the chairman to “quickly” send a $10 million wire to “properly fund and operate” the Biden joint venture with the company. 

JOE BIDEN SAYS HUNTER HAS DONE ‘NOTHING WRONG.’ REALLY? LET’S COUNT THE WAYS

Hunter Biden and Joe Biden photo from America First Legal (America First Legal)

Devon Archer, a former business partner and longtime friend of Hunter Biden, sat for hours before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door hearing last year and contradicted the president’s claim, saying Hunter put his father on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times. 

Archer described how Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.”

The photos drew strong criticism on social media in light of President Biden’s frequent claims he never discussed business with his son.

“Astonishing,” Red State writer Bonchie posted on X.

“These photos are incredibly damning and speak volumes,” author and journalist Peter Schweizer posted on X.

“It is such a disgrace that only through litigation, and only at the conclusion of the Biden administration is its corruption by ties to the Chinese Communist Party fully coming into focus,” Real Clear Politics editor Benjamin Weingarten posted on X.

“The Biden Crime Family Christmas card just dropped,” GOP Rep. Eric Burlison posted on X.

“China has the Bidens in its back pocket,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton posted on X.

Hunter Biden, left, son of President Biden, arrives with attorney Abbe Lowell at the O’Neill House Office Building for a closed-door deposition in a Republican-led investigation into the Biden family on Capitol Hill in Washington Feb. 28, 2024.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The newly unearthed photos of the Bidens meeting with Hunter’s Chinese business associates renews scrutiny of an email exchange previously reported by Fox News Digital. The 2014 email exchange reveals Hunter Biden once said he would be “happy” to introduce his business associates to a top Chinese Communist Party official to discuss potential investments after that official allegedly sat at Hunter’s table during a 2013 dinner in Beijing to welcome his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Hunter’s 2014 email exchange with James Bulger referred to the same China trip referenced in the America First Legal press release.

Bulger, who goes by “Jimmy,” served as the chairman of Boston-based Thornton Group LLC, a firm that joined forces with Hunter’s now-defunct Rosemont Seneca to launch its joint venture with Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital to create BHR Partners shortly after the Bidens traveled to China. BHR Partners is controlled by Bank of China Limited.

President Biden and Hunter Biden arrive in Syracuse, N.Y. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

In the 2014 email, Bulger asked Hunter to introduce BHR CEO Jonathan Li and Andy Lu, who was a BHR committee member, to “Mr. Tung,” which refers to C.H. Tung, a former governor of Hong Kong and billionaire who served as vice chairman of the CCP-linked Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, to discuss “BHR investment targets” and “fundraising.” 

The email alleged Hunter sat next to Tung at the December 2013 dinner welcoming Vice President Joe Biden to Beijing. Fox News Digital previously reached out to the White House multiple times requesting the seating chart for the Beijing dinner, specifically Hunter’s table, but it did not respond.

“It is my understanding that during the trip to Beijing that you made with your father, President Xi hosted a welcome dinner,” Bulger wrote. “[A]t that dinner, you were seated right next to Mr Tung, therefore J and Andy believe it would be very helpful if you could please send a brief email to Mr Tung laying out that you are a partner and Board Member of BHR and that You would be grateful to Mr Tung if he could meet your local partners to discuss the Fund.

“Please let me know if you can introduce these two to Mr Tung by email it is very important to our BHR intiative [sic] at this moment.”

Hunter responded that he was “happy” to fulfill the request but said he couldn’t recall the names of the gentlemen who sat next to him at the dinner.

It appears that the Beijing “welcome dinner” hosted by President Xi that Bulger was referencing in his initial email occurred during the evening of Dec. 4, 2013, after then-Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao met with Joe Biden earlier in the day to discuss strengthening U.S.-China relations. 

President Biden pardoned his son earlier this month for any crimes potentially committed dating back to 2014. 

Hunter Biden flashes a big smile as he leaves an Arby’s in Santa Barbara Dec. 4, 2024. This was the first time the son of President Biden had been photographed since being pardoned by his father. (The Image Direct for Fox News Digital)

“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” Biden wrote in a statement at the time. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” the 82-year-old father wrote. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Fox News Digital has previously reached out to the White House about why the pardon was so broad but did not receive a response.

“Even while President Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter, for anything and everything ‘he has committed or may have committed or taken part in’ going all the way back to the year 2014, more evidence comes out each day showing how his family leveraged Joe Biden’s even longer career in public office for private gain,” America First Legal Counsel Michael Ding said in a statement. 

“America First Legal will not stop fighting to uncover the full story of the Biden Family’s corruption.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Hunter Biden’s legal team and the Chinese businessmen in the photos but did not receive a comment.

Fox News Digital’s Jessica Chasmar Brooke Singman, and Tyler Olson contributed to this report