Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Supreme Court SHOCK RULING drops before INAUGURATION

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

In a unanimous new Supreme Court opinion, the Court just stuck it to Trump, gave a big win to the Biden Administration, rejected Trump’s calls to stop the forced sale of TikTok to give him time to ���broker a deal,” and upheld as constitutional the law forcing the sale by Sunday night of Tik Tok to a non “foreign adversary.” Michael Popok does the deep dive. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We got a new ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the TikTok case. They are going to support and they are not gonna block the law that now requires by Sunday that TikTok's Chinese government, communist government controlled a parent company sell TikTok to a non-foreign adversary of the United States.

Can't sell it to Iran, can't sell it to Russia, gotta sell it to somebody who's independent and isn't gonna it to Iran, can't sell it to Russia, gotta sell it to somebody who's independent and isn't gonna try to control it for its own purposes to undermine national security. They also in the order, in the nine zero order of the United States Supreme Court, I'm gonna read to you from it, they also take a moment to stick it to Donald Trump

and remind Donald Trump that he in 2020 completely supported this particular ban issued an executive order that would have forced the same sale. They don't even mention, this is yet another, this is I think the fourth time in a week, they have chastised Donald Trump showing, I guess, that they are no longer in his back pocket, but they said that they not only mentioned his 2020 actions

to block and ban TikTok, which now he's completely flip-flopped on, but they don't even mention his amicus brief, his friend of the court brief, which he filed a week or two ago that he said, hey, I got this, I'm gonna be the president soon. Give me more time. Don't make a ruling.

Don't force the sale on Sunday. I'll make a deal. They completely ignored that. Instead, spending valuable pages of their 20 page opinion to take on Donald Trump. That's what the Supreme Court has done. Let me read to you from the nine zero per curiam decision, the final part of the order,

then I'll back it up and give you the analysis and then tell you what's gonna happen next. This is nine zero per curiam meaning no one judge justice took responsibility. It's written by the entirety of the court, nine zero. Here's what they say. There is no doubt that for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet

for expression, means of engagement and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok's data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. Read that as China. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude, we the nine justices of the Supreme Court,

that the challenge provisions do not violate petitioners' First Amendment rights. The judgment of the lower court is affirmed. It is so ordered. Let me unpack that for you. TikTok argued in court that, well, they couldn't really address the security issues because they said it's unlikely that the Chinese government

would force TikTok to do anything even though they control it, which did not sit well with these justices. What they said was, it's our First Amendment rights and it's the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans. And this should be reviewed under what's called strict scrutiny, which is the highest level

of judicial scrutiny. It forces the government back on their heels when a court is reviewing a law to justify it under a very, as it says, very strict scrutiny, a very drawn dispute by the court. It is the highest level of judicial review required of a court in a case. However, the Supreme Court said,

this corporate divestiture statute requiring the forced sale of the assets is not a direct hit on First Amendment expression. And so we're not gonna apply strict scrutiny. Once they decided not to apply strict scrutiny, it was gonna be a lot easier for the government to justify why they were doing this. But let me read to you from the kind of hit on,

they hit on Donald Trump in the recitation of the facts section and then how they got here in particular. The, let me boil it down this way. The Supreme Court adopted and agreed with Congress that TikTok represents a foreign adversary controlled application in communications of the United States. A foreign, once they found it to be a foreign adversary

controlled application, the next step was it can be banned because it is a threat to our national security. People think TikTok is just like this independent platform. It's not, it's owned and controlled ultimately through the communist party of China. And it's not just about data collection, although the United States Supreme Court and Congress are both very concerned about data collection

and because it's a black box, we don't know what they're collecting, how they're collecting it, how they're vacuuming it up into their AI and how they're using it against America to make us more vulnerable, right? It's not just about the videos, it's about the platform ownership and data collection,

not what you're making, what they're doing with your information, right? That about the videos. It's about the platform ownership and data collection, not what you're making, what they're doing with your information, right? That is the issue. And so once they found it to be a foreign adversary controlled app, TikTok was dead in the water. Here's, let me read to you from the Procurium decision in particular.

Here's the attack on Trump, just on page three and four. In recent years, the decision says, well, let me give the relationship first. TikTok, this is on page two. TikTok is operated in the United States by TikTok Incorporated, an American company incorporated in California. TikTok's parent company is ByteDance,

a privately held company that has operated in China. ByteDance owns TikTok's proprietary algorithm, also a concern of the United States Supreme Court, which is developed and maintained in China. The company is also responsible for developing portions of the source code that runs the TikTok platform. ByteDance is subject to Chinese laws that require it to assist or cooperate

with the Chinese government's intelligence work and to ensure that the Chinese government has the power to access and control private data that the company holds. In other words, in order to do business in China, ByteDance has to agree to completely bend over, turn over all of its data and information. Basically let its servers be pulled at any time

by the communist Chinese government. That's the problem folks. In recent years, here's the attack on Trump by the Supreme Court, where they again, completely ignore the brief that he filed, where he said, stop everything, I'll fix it when I'm president. They're like, no, we're not doing that. In August 2020, the opinion recites to address national security concerns, President Trump

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or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The president Trump determined that TikTok raised particular concerns noting that the platform automatically captures

vast swaths of information from its users and is susceptible to being used to further the interest of the Chinese government. The president invoked his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to prohibit those transactions and start the process of the divestiture. Next page, page four.

Just days after issuing his initial executive order, President Trump, again, sticking at the Trump, ordered ByteDance to divest all interest in rights used to enable or support ByteDance operations and the TikTok application in the United States. ByteDance filed a lawsuit in the District of Columbia challenging the constitutionality of the order. And then throughout 2021 and 2022, ByteDance negotiated with the executive branch officials.

This is now, you know, now we're getting into the Biden administration to develop national security agreement that resolved those concerns, but that stalled and failed and they never finalized an agreement, which led to Congress passing the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

When we say shorthand, the bite dance or TikTok ban, we're talking about the divestiture act. And so once they described it that way, the United States Supreme Court then goes into how they try to allege TikTok unsuccessfully that their First Amendment rights are being violated. Supreme Court ultimately ruled that this divestiture requirement is not a direct hit on First Amendment. It's content neutral because they don't care what's on the content.

They just want the corporate asset to be sold. And since they focused on the corporate asset, they did not find direct First Amendment implications to apply the strict scrutiny standard in order to rule for TikTok and against the ban. Now, let me also read you the other provisions of this. This is on page 11 about the security risks. The government also supports the challenge provisions

with a content neutral justification, preventing China from collecting vast amounts of sensitive data from 170 million U.S. TikTok users. That rationale is decidedly content agnostic. It neither references the content of speech on TikTok nor reflects disagreement on the message such speech conveys." Then they go over to say, we're talking about a corporate divestiture of a foreign adversary controlled app. We're not talking about the first amendment.

Moving on to pages, page 13, this is how the Supreme Court sees this new law. The new law prohibits, the new law's prohibitions and divestiture requirement are designed to prevent China, a designated foreign adversary, from leveraging its control over bike dance to capture the personal data of US TikTok users. This objective qualifies as an important government interest

under intermediate scrutiny, which is the scrutiny level they are applying to this. Let me read you on page 14. Rather than meaningfully, this is where they take on TikTok, they didn't think they did a very good job during oral argument or briefing, trying to allay the fears and security risks

of the United States Supreme Court. This is what they say on page 14 of the court. Rather than meaningfully dispute the scope of the data TikTok collects or the ends to which it may be used, petitioners TikTok contest probability, asserting that it is unlikely that China would compel TikTok to turn over user data for intelligence gathering purposes,

since China has more effective and efficient means of obtaining relevant information. Like China's much better at it, they don't need TikTok. In reviewing the constitutionality of the act, however, we must accord substantial deference to the predictive judgments of Congress. In other words, that's not what Congress thinks. And so we're going to go with Congress's position. And then finally, they say on page 16,

as applied to TikTok, the act is sufficiently tailored, this is the one requiring divestiture, to address the government's interest in preventing a foreign adversary from collecting vast swaths of sensitive data from 170 million US TikTok users. To survive this scrutiny, the standard is justified so long as the regulation promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved Less effectively absent the regulation and that's how they rely on that

Let me talk about next steps here before I leave this hot take The Biden administration very smartly is not going to enforce the ban on Monday night. Sorry, Sunday night, they're going to throw is only hours left until Trump takes office. Trump, who's has this is going to make for a very awkward inauguration, because the tick tock president is going to be a VIP sitting near or next to Donald Trump, like effectively on his lap. And all the tech people like Apple with the app store for tick tock are going to be sitting in and around Donald Trump as like effectively on his lap. And all the tech people like Apple with the app store for TikTok are gonna be sitting in and around

Donald Trump as well. And the vice president or vice premier of China is coming for the inauguration. The president decided not to, the premier decided not to come. So it's gonna make for an awkward moment. Trump has already said that he's flip-flopped on his 2020 rulemaking and decision about TikTok that the Supreme Court relied on.

Because A, he's got an investor who's best friends with him, who supports an investment bite dance, that's one. And two, his son, Barron, this is like Fredo giving advice to the Godfather, but Barron told him that TikTok is a great way to get elected. And so he fell in love with TikTok and podcasts and all this stuff. And so Donald Trump wants to broker a deal to the sale of TikTok and he wants more time to do it. But the Supreme Court is like saying we're not giving you more time.

You want to do something? You want to not enforce the law? Joe Biden very smartly threw a political hand grenade to Donald Trump and says you don't want to do it? You look the American people in the eye and you tell them why you don't think it's any longer a security risk to that a foreign adversary controlled communications application is operating in the United States. Go ahead, you do it. And then of course, we're able to use that. And Donald Trump's waste of political capital and lying to the American people against him at midterm and for the next presidential election. Very smart, cunning political move by Joe Biden

and his administration on the way out. I don't see Donald Trump enforcing it on Monday. I think he'll try to extend the time arguing that there's some deal in the works, which there isn't. Maybe his own truth social will be involved. Another violation of the constitution for him to benefit from this law. I will follow it right here.

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