Trump joins TikTok and gains 3 million followers in two days

Donald Trump has garnered over three million followers in just two days on social media platform TikTok – the app he once tried to ban on national security grounds.

The decision to join the short video-sharing app is seen as an outreach to young Gen Z voters in his third bid for the White House. He is in a close race with Democratic incumbent Joe Biden ahead of the 5 November presidential election.

Trump on Saturday night posted a launch video on his account, which has the address @realdonaldtrump. It showed the 45th president greeting fans at an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight in Newark, New Jersey. The video has over 56 million views.

“It’s an honor,” he said in the video, which now has over 56 million views. The video ends with Trump telling the camera: “That was a good walk-on, right?”

Trump said he would «use every tool available to speak directly with the American people...»

“We will leave no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content,” Trump's spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement about the campaign’s decision to join the platform.

“There’s no place better than a UFC event to launch president Trump’s Tik Tok, where he received a hero’s welcome and thousands of fans cheered him on,” he added.

Mr Biden's election campaign joined TikTok in February and has amassed over 340,000 followers. The campaign has tried to work with influencers despite the president signing a bill that would ban the app, used by 170 million Americans, if its Chinese owner ByteDance fails to divest it.

ByteDance is challenging in courts the law that requires it to sell TikTok by next January or face a ban. The White House wants to see Chinese-based