Justice Department urges Supreme Court to reject Trump's push to pause TikTok ban

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC News

Jan. 4, 2025, 1:06 PM EST


The Justice Department on Friday urged the Supreme Court to reject President-elect Donald Trump’s request to delay the implementation of a law that would effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. or force its sale by its Chinese parent company by Jan. 19.

The latest filing in the Supreme Court case comes after Trump’s lawyer D. John Sauer asked the court to pause the law beyond the deadline to give the president-elect “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution to the questions at issue in the case.” The DOJ argued that Trump’s filing took “no position” on the First Amendment question, which is the basis of the lawsuit that the Supreme Court agreed to hear on a fast-tracked basis.

TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, sued to try to stop implementation of the law, arguing that it violates its free speech rights under the First Amendment. The DOJ said that granting Trump’s request would equate to a temporary injunction and could only be implemented if ByteDance established a likelihood that it would win the case, but that the company had not done so. The Justice Department also tackled ByteDance’s First Amendment argument head-on in Friday’s filing.

“The Act does not warrant heightened First Amendment scrutiny because it does not impose a burden on any cognizable First Amendment rights of ByteDance, its U.S. subsidiary, or TikTok’s users,” lawyers for the department wrote. “The Act satisfies any level of First Amendment scrutiny, and this Court should uphold it,” they added.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/justice-department-supreme-court-trump-pause-tiktok-ban-rcna186240

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. This was a very silly filing by trump

One of the most persistent myths in contemporary politics is that Trump is a world-class negotiator and dealmaker. The evidence suggests otherwise.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3lejxurhl7s2p

In the SCOTUS filing in the TikTok case, Trump's lawyer said he alone "possesses the consummate deal-making expertise ... to negotiate a resolution."

The idea that Trump is a world-class negotiator is a ridiculous myth, which has lingered for far too long.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/tiktok-case-trumps-lawyers-cling-unfortunate-gop-myth-rcna185743

The move sparked litigation, and the case is currently pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. As NBC News reported, it was against this backdrop that the president-elect’s lawyers filed a curious brief.

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday asked the Supreme Court to pause implementation of a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. starting Jan. 19 if the app is not sold by its Chinese parent company. The court is due to hear arguments in the case on Jan. 10.

Ordinarily in a court filing such as this one, we’d expect to see an argument urging the justices to rule one way or another based on legal merits. But in the filing from D. John Sauer — the president-elect’s lawyer who’s slated to be nominated for U.S. solicitor general — Team Trump instead asked the high court to simply delay the current law’s deadline in order to allow the incoming administration to pursue a new and different policy.

This is, to be sure, a strange approach to jurisprudence. But I was also intrigued by the specific pitch included in the court filing.

“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the brief said......

But the evidence of Trump actually succeeding on this front does not exist. There were literally zero instances in which he successfully brought Democratic and Republican leaders together and negotiated a major legislative breakthrough. Indeed, toward the end of his first term, Trump largely gave up on even trying to make deals with Congress.

The Washington Post reported in August 2020, “The president who pitched himself to voters as the consummate negotiator and ultimate dealmaker has repeatedly found his strategies flummoxed by the complexities and pressures of Washington lawmaking.” This came on the heels of the Post’s Jackson Diehl explaining, in reference to Trump: “He’s not up to serious negotiation. He can’t be expected to seriously weigh costs and benefits, or make complex trade-offs. He’s good at bluster, hype and showy gestures, but little else. In short, he may be the worst presidential deal maker in modern history.”

With this in mind, as Trump’s lawyers tell the Supreme Court that the president-elect “alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise ... to negotiate a resolution to save” TikTok, I have a follow-up question: Why in the world would anyone believe this, given his record of failed negotiations?

trump is not a negotiator in the real world.

[Buddyzbuddy]

2. Bubbles wants the delay because it provides a win-win

situation. Either he can extort protection money or he shuts it down and portrays himself as the strong leader. He's always looking for a new parade in process so he can scurry to the front and lead it.