President-elect Trump's highly unusual intervention in the Supreme Court's TikTok case reads almost like a guy asking for a favor from an institution that still runs on formality. The big picture: Trump's last-minute effort to give TikTok a stay of execution is one more twist in a case that already scrambles every ideological dividing line.

T he fate of TikTok in the United States will soon be in the hands of the Supreme Court, as the Justices hear oral arguments Friday over a law that could shut down the popular social media platform.

The Supreme Court will consider the landmark TikTok ban, balancing free speech and national security over ByteDance’s Chinese ownership risks.