Congress

Trump’s TikTok Dance Is a Constitutional Farce

Published

1 year ago

September 19, 2025

In January, just days before the Supreme Court unanimously upheld Congress’ ban on TikTok and Donald Trump returned to the White House, Sen. Tom Cotton took to the Senate floor and warned the country that the “lethal algorithm” in the Beijing-based social media company’s app “has cost the lives of many American kids.” “Let me be crystal clear,” the Arkansas Republican said. “There will be no extensions, no concessions and no compromises for TikTok.”

Eight months later, the Trump administration has just given TikTok and the Chinese government another extension, another concession and another compromise. On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order providing a fourth “enforcement delay” of Congress’ ban — now extending until December 16.

It’s just the latest development in a saga that served as an early warning for what was to come in the second Trump term: a president eager to steamroll Capitol Hill and a GOP-controlled Congress happy to oblige him. When it comes to Trump’s handling of the TikTok ban, it has, at best, scrambled the constitutional order, and, at worst, seen the administration openly flout a law passed by the American public’s elected representatives in order to advance the political, personal and financial interests of Trump and his allies.

On Friday, Trump is set to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping to agree to the terms of a proposed deal that is supposed to finally end the TikTok drama and bring all parties into compliance with the law. The deal reportedly involves some sort of sale to a consortium of investors that may include Trump allies and billionaires like Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen, though the structure and legality of the agreement remain unclear. Indeed, whatever happens Friday is not likely to end the matter.

The law passed by Congress and signed into law under Joe Biden requires TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance to divest at least 80 percent of its financial stake in the company and also precludes “any cooperation” concerning “the operation of a content recommendation algorithm or an agreement with respect to data sharing.” Earlier this week, however, a Chinese cybersecurity official said that the framework includes “licensing the [TikTok] algorithm and other intellectual property rights.” Depending on the specifics, that licensing arrangement, with its “lethal algorithm” intact, could run afoul of the law. What then?

Some Republican China hawks on Capitol Hill insisted this week that they will closely scrutinize the deal when the terms become clearer, but there has been almost no pushback from Republicans over Trump’s decision to unilaterally ignore the TikTok ban all year — and far less from Democrats than one might have expected.

Cotton did not respond to a request for comment about Trump’s continuing refusal to enforce the law, despite being a once-voluble critic of TikTok and the Chinese government’s control of the app and arguing that the app has already “cost the lives of many American kids.”

A representative for Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told me that if I wanted to hear from him on the matter, I was free to track him down in the Capitol. Hawley previously defended the ban and warned of the dangers of TikTok in January, shortly before Trump returned to office and announced that the administration would simply ignore it. “It’s not just a national security threat,” Hawley said of TikTok at the time. “It’s a personal security threat.”

Trump himself once shared these concerns. In 2020, he signed an executive order declaring that TikTok’s data collection “threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.”

That, of course, was before Trump courted a billionaire donor with a stake in TikTok and before Trump decided that TikTok had helped him win his 2024 reelection bid. Last month, the White House created an official TikTok account — a further sign, if one was needed, of the Trump administration’s ongoing disregard for the ban passed by Congress.

Meanwhile, Trump has benefited from an apparent lack of coordination and urgency on the Democratic side of the aisle.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer voted for the ban but later opposed immediate implementation of the law in January and endorsed a legislative extension before the law went into effect. That did not pass, but Trump has kept TikTok alive anyway without apparent legal authority to do so. Schumer did not respond to a request for comment on Trump’s series of TikTok executive orders this year.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, for his part, opposed the TikTok ban in the first place but said that he is waiting to see more about the deal before rendering a final opinion.

“I’m working to make sure this deal does not lead to the censorship of free speech and will protect the millions of content creators who rely on TikTok,” he told Blue Light News Magazine.

The whole situation has no apparent precedent in the annals of American law.

Sure, there are lots of laws on the books, and the federal government cannot enforce them all. That is why federal law enforcement relies heavily on priority-setting and careful attention to the opportunity costs of pursuing some crimes over others.

The Trump administration has made its agenda clear, and the ramifications have not been surprising. If, for example, you insist that federal law enforcement agents and prosecutors focus almost entirely on illegal immigration, then you are going to have fewer investigations and prosecutions for white-collar crime and financial fraud — which is exactly what is happening now.

In February, Trump announced that he was “pausing” enforcement of the foreign anti-bribery statute — a law that he notoriously hates — and in June, the Justice Department issued a memo that dramatically narrowed the circumstances under which the administration would enforce the law. In less overt fashion, the Justice Department has also significantly de-prioritized public corruption investigations, which Trump also hates.

Reasonable minds can often disagree about which federal laws merit the Justice Department’s focus at any given point in time, but the TikTok ban stands apart both for its public and political salience, as well as its simplicity.

The law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and was unanimously affirmed on constitutional grounds by the Supreme Court. In the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk, the country is also now engaged in a national, rolling public debate about the polarizing and radicalizing dangers of social media, particularly on America’s youth.

The TikTok ban is also not subtle or particularly complicated to implement. It states that the Justice Department “shall conduct investigations related to potential violations” of the ban by tech companies, including third-party service providers, and that the Justice Department “shall pursue enforcement” if a violation has occurred. The fines that are supposed to apply are massive, potentially adding up to billions of dollars.

Instead of abiding by this provision, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote letters to Apple, Google and other tech companies earlier this year informing them that she was effectively immunizing them for any violations of the law. She argued that enforcing the ban would “interfere with the execution of the President’s constitutional duties to take care of the national security and foreign affairs of the United States.”

Left unsaid was how this decision would comply with the president’s constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” how it could be squared with Congress’ constitutional lawmaking authority, or why we should all be okay with the administration unilaterally disregarding the American public’s interest in having the executive branch enforce the laws passed by their elected representatives.

The TikTok ban may or may not be good on the merits. You may hate it or you may love it, but it is the law of the land — and it has been all year.

If the ban was a bad idea, then Congress could have repealed the law or passed a legislative extension, but neither of those things has happened. Instead, pretty much every politician in Washington — on both sides of the aisle — has effectively decided that the law can be flagrantly ignored because of TikTok’s popularity and the potential electoral fallout that could result from antagonizing the app’s relatively young user base.

This is not how laws are supposed to work in this country.

Congress is supposed to pass them, and the president is supposed to enforce them. There are no constitutional carve-outs for popular social media apps or for companies that helped you win your election.

Over the last eight months, the Trump administration has run roughshod over Congress and its constitutional prerogatives. Trump’s decision to ignore the TikTok ban on his first day in office may seem minor in the grand scheme of things, but it foreshadowed a series of far more aggressive moves to usurp much of lawmakers’ constitutional authority: dismantling congressionally-created agencies, redirecting congressionally appropriated funds and implementing a massive tax hike on the American public in the form of Trump’s chaotic tariff regime.

The vast majority of this was made possible by congressional Republicans, who have largely turned a blind eye to all of Trump’s gambits, and by the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, who have handed Trump a series of victories this year in his wide-ranging efforts to both unilaterally slash the federal government while dramatically expanding the powers of the presidency.

The acquiescence to Trump’s TikTok reprieve this year has been a far more bipartisan affair, but it has been a constitutional farce all the same, and it is not over yet.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

15 minutes ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

28 minutes ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

6 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.