Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said that he was interested in buying TikTok just one day after the House voted to ban the popular social media platform.
"I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold," Mnuchin told CNBC's Squawk Box on Thursday morning. "It's a great business and I'm going to put together a group to buy TikTok."
The Chinese company ByteDance owns TikTok but the app boasts an estimated 150 million monthly users in the United States - including more than half of all adults between 18 and 24, according to Pew.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle object to the Chinese-owned app, citing privacy and security concerns. President Joe Biden has indicated that if the legislation were to pass through the Senate, he would sign the bill into law.
Recent polling suggests that most Americans don't support banning the popular video-sharing app. Forty-one percent of adults under 30 opposed the ban in a December Pew poll, while just 29% supported a ban.
The idea of TikTok ban was most popular among adults 65 and older - with 49% supporting the ban. Across all age cohorts, only 38% of Americans supported a ban, while 35% were unsure and 27% were opposed. This data stands in stark contrast to Congress itself, where the bill passed the House 352-65, with bipartisan approval.
"This should be owned by U.S. businesses," Mnuchin told CNBC. "There's no way that the Chinese would ever let a U.S. company own something like this in China."