Belatedly tapping into a social media platform favored by younger voters, Donald Trump joined TikTok on Saturday — and amassed more than 3.1 million followers in his 24 hours — on a platform he tried to ban when president. 

Trump’s inaugural post chronicled the hero’s welcome he received when he entered a packed Newark arena for Saturday night’s UFC fights, two days after being convicted of falsifying business records, in a blatant case of the judicial system being weaponized for political purposes. By Sunday evening, his first post had racked up 3.2 million likes and more than 125,000 replies. 

The video starts with UFC chief executive Dana White announcing, “The president is now on TikTok.” Trump replies, “It’s my honor.” After showing him receiving huge cheers, Trump asks, “That was a good walk-on, right?”

@realdonaldtrump Launching my TikTok at @UFC ♬ original sound – President Donald J Trump

Despite having spotted the Biden campaign a big head start on the platform, Trump is already out to an enormous lead. “Donald Trump has amassed nearly 10 times the amount of followers in a 24-hour period than the Biden campaign has in 4 months,” noted Collin Rugg on Twitter. With every passing minute, the lead is only getting larger: 

Donald Trump vs Biden campaign live TikTok follower count 🤣

https://t.co/Om1LNMWrKL

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) June 3, 2024

The TikTok play is an obvious effort to reach younger voters who dominate TikTok’s 170-million-American user base. In a statement, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said : 

“We will leave no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content. There’s no place better than a UFC event to launch President Trump’s TikTok, where he received a hero’s welcome and thousands of fans cheered him on.”

Biden’s reelection bid is being severely undermined by a loss of ground with what have previously been cornerstone Democratic Party constituencies. In addition to seeing his support sag among Hispanics and blacks, Biden now trails Trump by 6 points among Gen Z and Millennial Americans, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. The two groups comprise everyone born after 1981 — currently encompassing voters age 18 to 43.  

In April, Biden signed into law a deeply controversial measure that gave TikTok’s Chinese parent 270 days to sell the platform; a failure to do so would trigger a nationwide ban. Illuminating Biden’s obvious insincerity in describing the platform as a danger to Americans, his campaign in April said it would remain on TikTok anyway.   

As president, Trump attempted to ban TikTok via executive order. He lost a legal challenge, with Judge Carl Nichols saying the Commerce Department “likely overstepped” its authority under presidential emergency powers. 

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— Overton (@OvertonLive) March 11, 2024

In a break with most GOP legislators, Trump backed off the TikTok warpath ahead of the April vote. While still clinging to the deep state’s claims of national security peril, Trump said he opposed a ban because it would benefit Facebook, which he called “an enemy of the people.”

He was also clearly sensing a ban’s deep unpopularity among young voters. “Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump said in March during call-in segment on CNBC’s Squawk Box.