WASHINGTON (TNND) — An unprecedented clash between Silicon Valley, Congress and the incoming president has Americans looking up from their phones and turning their attention to the Supreme Court.

In a Hail Mary to save its future in the United States, TikTok convinced the Supreme Court to hear its case and decide whether a national security law enacted last year violates the First Amendment.

Last Spring, with broad bipartisan consensus, the majority of lawmakers in Congress and President Joe Biden created the Protecting Americans' Data From Foreign Adversaries Act, which in part, requires TikTok to be sold from its Chinese parent company ByteDance by January 19 or be banned in the United States.

“We don’t want to get rid of TikTok. We just want the ownership not to be in the hands of a nation that is an adversary," said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who now serves as the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, formerly the chairman.

TikTok has made it clear: It has no interest in being sold.

"Congress’s unprecedented attempt to single out Petitioners and bar them from operating one of the Nation’s most significant speech venues is profoundly unconstitutional," TikTok's counsel wrote in their brief.

In the lower courts, the government won with ease.

“Particularly the D.C. Court of Appeals, in a unanimous decision said that TikTok loses, that the government wins, that this was a bipartisan law that focused on national security and that absolutely TikTok through China could be spying on Americans, could be sending propaganda that influence our citizens and that no First Amendment rights were violated," said former U.S. Attorney John P. Fishwick, Jr.

Before they determine the outcome of the case, the justices will decide whether to keep the January 19 deadline in place.

“They’ll have to decide, does the law go into effect on the 19th, which means effectively TikTok would be shut down on the 19th, or will the Supreme Court look for ways to have the law delayed?” Fishwick said.

A delay is exactly what President-elect Donald Trump has asked of the high court. In an amicus brief filed just before the new year, his counsel said the deadline “is unfortunately timed to bind the hands of the incoming Trump Administration on a significant issue of national security and foreign policy.”

During his first term, Trump supported a TikTok ban. He later reversed course while feuding with other social media companies, concerned a TikTok ban would only benefit them. During the 2024 campaign, he ran on preserving the platform.

“For all of those that want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump," he said in a September post on his Truth Social platform.

In his own amicus brief, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a supporter of the national security law, urged the justices to act quickly.

"While Senator McConnell expects the incoming administration to faithfully apply the Foreign Adversaries Act if called upon to do so," the senator's office wrote, "the fact is that the incoming president has, at times, taken a different stance on TikTok than President Biden. This offers petitioners a glimmer of hope that their corporate death penalty will be stayed if they can drag out the divesture beyond the statutory mandate."