Trump not ready to OK TikTok deal, admits US won't get cut

 President Donald Trump said he expects to get a report Thursday about Oracle's bid for Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok and mitted re is legal path to letting U.S. Treasury get a cut of deal — a proposition experts h criticized as unprecedented and possibly illegal.

“I’m t prepared to sign off on anything. I have to see deal,” Trump told White House reporters Wednesday evening about Oracle's interest in TikTok.

Some in U.S. have raised concerns about deal, fearing that ByteDance Ltd., Chinese company that owns TikTok, would maintain access to information on 100 million TikTok users in United States.

“It has to be 100% as far as national security is concerned," Trump said.

president previously said that he would ban TikTok if it wasn't sold to an American company. In an Aug. 6 order, Trump said TikTok “reportedly censors content that Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive,” is potentially a source for disinformation campaigns and “threatens to allow Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.”

TikTok maintains that it has t shared U.S. user data with Chinese government and would t do so, says it does t censor videos at request of Chinese authorities and tes that moderators for U.S. operations are led by a U.S. team.

Trump said he was stunned to learn that Treasury could t receive any payment in exchange for U.S. signing off on deal.

“Amazingly, I find that you’re t allowed to do that,” Trump said. “If y’re willing to make big payments to government y’re t allowed because ... re’s legal path to doing that. ... How foolish can we ( United States) be?"

TikTok, which says it has 100 million users in U.S. and 700 million globally, is kwn for fun, goofy videos of dancing, lip-syncing, pranks and jokes. It’s also home to more political material, some of which is critical of Trump.

Oracle arrangement, according to a person familiar with matter who isn’t authorized to speak publicly, entrusts TikTok’s U.S. user data to Oracle, which would oversee technical operations for TikTok in U.S. Oracle won’t develop code for app, but will review it and updates to it.

t all Republicans are on board with Oracle deal. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a frequent critic of both China and tech sector, called for government to reject Oracle partnership and inste pursue a full sale of TikTok in U.S. or ban app.

“An ongoing ‘partnership’ that allows for anything or than full emancipation of TikTok software from potential Chinese Communist Party control is completely unacceptable, and flatly inconsistent with President’s Executive Order of Aug. 6,” he wrote on Tuesday.

A group of six or Republican senators led by Marco Rubio of Florida on Wednesday sent a letter to president expressing reservations about partnership agreement with Oracle, saying that it appears to have “significant unresolved national security issues” and that a deal “must ensure that TikTok’s U.S. operations, data and algorithms are entirely outside control of ByteDance or any Chinese-state directed actors.”

A Trump executive order has set a Sept. 20 deline, although it isn’t clear what will happen on that day. TikTok has sued to stop ban, which also affects a separately owned Chinese messaging app, WeChat, which is used by several million in U.S.