GOP-led House passes bipartisan bill to force China company Bytedance to divest stake in TikTok

A bill to require the Chinese company Bytedance to divest its stake in TikTok within 165 days or face a ban on the popular smartphone application in the U.S. passed on the House floor in a bipartisan vote on Wednesday.

The final vote was 352-65 with one voting present. 

The legislation previously had passed 50-0 in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Former President Trump had attempted to ban TikTok when he was in office but it ultimately didn't come to fruition.

Recently, Trump expressed opposition to taking steps to ban the app.

"There’s a lot of good and a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is, without TikTok you can make Facebook bigger. And I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with the media,” Trump said on Monday.

In the lead up to the vote, congressional offices had reportedly been flooded with calls from constituents urging their representatives not to support the bill that could lead to a ban on the app in the U.S. 

"It’s so so bad. Our phones have not stopped ringing. They’re teenagers and old people saying they spend their whole day on the app and we cant [sic] take it away," a GOP congressional staffer said, according to Politico.

On the House floor, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., argued that the bill sets a bad precedent, while other Republicans like Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said the bill is necessary since TikTok's connections to the Chinese Communist Party pose a national threat to the U.S.

The bill now moves to the Democratic-Senate where Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he intends to try blocking the bill from rapid consideration on the floor.