Donald Trump joins TikTok, rapidly wins over a million followers

Within hours of joining TikTok, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had attracted over 1.3 million followers on the short video social media platform that he tried to ban as president on national security grounds.

The decision to join the platform on Saturday could help the former president reach younger voters in his third bid for the White House. He is in a close race with Democratic incumbent Joe Biden ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Biden's election campaign is already on TikTok, although Biden has signed a bill that would ban the app, which is used by 170 million Americans, if its Chinese owner ByteDance fails to divest it.

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

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said it leave will "no front undefended and this represents the continued outreach to a younger audience consuming pro-Trump and anti-Biden content."