As the President considers a ban on TikTok, Sarah Cooper responds
President Donald Trump is considering banning TikTok or at least ordering its owner, ByteDance, to divest its ownership in the popular social media site, on the grounds that the app is a security risk. Soon after the news broke, comedian Sarah Cooper offered her own spin on it.
The comedian has become one of the site’s most prolific crossover stars, making a name for herself during quarantine by lip-syncing the President’s speeches and adding her own context to hilarious effect. She has racked up more than half a million followers on TikTok thanks to videos showing her interpretation of Trump’s words, whether he is being questioned about what his favorite Bible verses or recounting the cognitive test he took by repeatedly reciting the words “people, woman, man, camera, TV”.
Since Cooper’s star has risen thanks to the site, when news broke that Trump was weighing a ban against TikTok, Cooper responded to the news in fitting form. She released yet another video satirizing the President’s comments about his plan. “We’re looking at TikTok. We may be banning TikTok, we may be doing some other things, there are a couple of options,” Trump said through Cooper’s interpretation, which was complete with a fan blowing her hair back and offering Air Force One-like sound effects. “But a lot of things are happening, so we’ll see what happens. But we are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to TikTok.”
Cooper also took the time to point out that not all of her videos are even made on the TikTok app, hinting that banning the short-form content creation site would not slow her down.
Luckily for fans of both TikTok and Sarah Cooper, Microsoft is currently in negotiations to purchase the U.S. operations of the app. If the sale goes through, TikTok—and Cooper’s impersonations—could be around for a long, long time.