Donald Trump is apparently asked the Supreme Court to pause the impending TikTok ban. And this story is just coming out right now. We're gonna give you all the details, but we sort of thought this might happen. - What's your immediate reaction? - Yeah. So disagree with why he's doing it, but love that he's doing it. [00:00:17] - So let's give you the details. - Yeah. Well so he has asked the Supreme Court to pause it. As of right now, the app would be banned on January 19th, one day before the inauguration. And that would be if the app is not divested to an American company before that date. [00:00:32] There does not seem to be the sort of progress towards that or will to do that required to avoid that ban. In his court filing, he suggested that he could negotiate a political resolution to the matter before the court needs to rule. And so that basically describes the argument he's making. [00:00:49] But let's turn now to one of his lawyers, John Sauer. I believe it is to make that same point, but in a far more grotesque and cloying manner, he said. President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal making expertise. The electoral mandate, dear God, and the political will to negotiate [00:01:07] a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government, concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged. And even that seems to be an acknowledgment that Donald Trump had years ago been one of the chief proponents for banning TikTok. [00:01:24] Although we do have to be fair to Donald Trump, he had not yet been handed a bunch of money to change his position on that yet. And so we have to be fair. We will always be fair here. In any event, they are hearing arguments on the case on January 10th. They had previously declined TikTok's request to pause the law. [00:01:40] So we're gonna have to wait and see how this possibly affects that in either. In any event, there's not a lot of time before the ban is intended to go into effect, so they would have to really expedite some sort of ruling on this. Yeah. So look, I hate the ban on TikTok. I think it's against free speech. [00:01:57] I think it takes away the voice of literally millions and tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of Americans. And and it's intended to take that voice away. That's why they're doing it. I don't think they're worried about, the national security at all. [00:02:12] Their servers are here in America. They are following every rule that we have asked them to follow. We can put in extra safeguards that apply to TikTok, Facebook, Google, etc.. We're choosing not to. We're choosing to only target TikTok because they view TikTok as more progressive and and and filled with opinions that the elites don't like, [00:02:32] including showing videos and pictures of what's happening in Gaza and they hate it. Yesterday, Ben Gleib and I had a little bit of a debate about that, but but Mitt Romney, Brian Kilmeade, Anthony Blinken have all basically admitted it. And Romney famously said, you know, the Israelis used to be good at PR, [00:02:51] but I don't know what's happening now. So we got to ban TikTok. I mean, it was amazing that he admitted it while talking to Anthony Blinken. So I love that they that that he's, you know, trying to get away from that ban. But let's be real. Why? Because Jeff Yass gave him millions of dollars and Jeff has his 15% [00:03:10] owner of TikTok, and in his last term he was trying to ban TikTok. Now he got paid not to ban it. So he's not banning it. I mean, it is it is textbook corruption. So you could hate why he did it while still liking the fact that he did it. Yeah, definitely. [00:03:25] So I mean, people should know that there are about 1 billion global users of TikTok and the country with the largest number of users, at least last time I checked, is the United States of any country in the world where we have approximately 180 million or so users of TikTok. [00:03:40] People should note that TikTok users tend to skew young. So again, banning it is the stupidest idea imaginable. It further infantilizes and treats younger people as not worthy [00:03:56] of their voices being circulated. I mean, Jen and John, every one of my students for years at UCLA is primarily using and engaging with TikTok and TikTok's ability, or the ability the way the means by which they were able to see live stream Genocide, [00:04:13] which has now been continuing horrifically for 15 plus months in Gaza and is being expanded in these other locations West Bank, etc., incursions into Syria, Houthis, all of it. They're able to see all of that, which is why they, I think, [00:04:28] heroically let our encampments on our campus at UCLA before the goons took them out, partly facilitated by our own leadership and my campus. So it's this is this is ridiculous. You know, some of the critiques of TikTok is that its algorithms skew [00:04:45] to extremist content. But guess what? So does Facebook. So does x, x for sure. So do so does Instagram. So does YouTube. Exactly. And so, you know, TikTok of course works very differently in the country. In China, banning something never works. It's like a hydra. [00:05:03] You cut off one head, other heads grow. Our younger people will find ways to stay on TikTok. Anyone ever heard of a VPN and so on. And it's just stupid and out of touch. And the Biden administration was considering the same thing during its time as well, so it just doesn't make any sense for them to ban TikTok. [00:05:21] I don't think it's going to work out very well for them if they choose to do that. And, you know, I think Trump does have, I hope, enough, political. Well, I don't really like Trump. But, you know, I don't like him at all. But but the the political sense, I don't think the political calculus is smart at all to ban TikTok if he wants any young people to continue to support him. [00:05:40] Yeah. So I'll add a last couple of things here because you're right. It's so he got, the money from Jeff Yass and then immediately changed his position after that. So that's why I say it's textbook corruption. But he also did point out, hey, you know, a lot of people like me on TikTok. [00:05:57] And there's truth to that. It's young people overall, as Ramesh is saying, a lot of them are left wing, but a lot of them are right wing too. And so they don't want to be banned either. And Trump did really well on TikTok, whereas Biden didn't. And Biden, Biden do well because he said, I'm going to ban TikTok. [00:06:12] Then he started a TikTok account. I mean, it doesn't get any more hypocritical and ridiculous than that. And that, right there is a perfect picture of like the carcass of Democratic leadership that is still haunting Democratic Party and voters. [00:06:28] And finally, you know, who blocks social media outlets because they don't like what they're saying. Totalitarian governments. That's what Iran does when there's a crackdown. There's what? So and and other, the Saudis, etc., whenever there's any kind of, not even a rebellion, but disagreeing with the people in power, [00:06:45] authoritarian governments come in and try to crush social media, and that's what the establishment is trying to do right now in America. So I love that they're not hopefully, that they're not going to ban it. Thanks for watching The Young Turks really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. [00:07:02] You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows and specials right after they air. [00:07:18] So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. Thank you.