12/28/24: TikTok Ban, Disaster Relief Corruption, Voters Reject Dems

Summary

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar – Episode Released December 28, 2024

Title: TikTok Ban, Disaster Relief Corruption, Voters Reject Dems

Hosted by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti under the iHeartPodcasts banner, this episode of Breaking Points tackles three pivotal issues dominating the political and social landscape of 2024: the controversial TikTok ban, allegations of government corruption in disaster relief efforts, and the intriguing phenomenon of voters supporting Democratic policy initiatives while rejecting Democratic candidates. Through in-depth interviews and robust discussions, the hosts shed light on these complex topics, offering insights and sparking critical conversations.

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1. Disaster Relief Corruption: Valencia Floods and Hurricane Helene

Guest: Ira Motorelli, Investigative Journalist and Associate Editor at 21st Century Wire

Overview: The episode opens with a compelling investigation into the government responses to two devastating natural disasters: the floods in Valencia, Spain, and Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, USA. Ira Motorelli provides a detailed account of the systemic failures and alleged corruption that exacerbated the human and infrastructural tolls of these events.

Key Points:

• Comparison of Disasters: Both Valencia and North Carolina experienced severe natural disasters that exposed critical flaws in government response mechanisms.
• Government Mismanagement: Allegations include delayed aid, lack of transparency, and misreporting of casualty figures to mitigate financial liabilities.
• Discrepancy in Death Tolls: Official reports significantly understated the actual number of fatalities, with on-the-ground reports suggesting figures in the thousands compared to the official count of just over 100.
• Suppression of Information: Motorelli highlights instances where bodies were not properly marked or recorded, leading to inaccuracies in death toll reporting.

Notable Quotes:

• "When you speak, when you mentioned the failure of the early warnings, that kind of brought back memories of what happened in Maui with the wildfires that happened there." – Host James Lee [06:33]
• "So we can clearly see the body bags, but we can't actually see that they've marked that. They said they don't do that, because then you could obviously kind of go around all these towns, count the numbers, and see that massive discrepancy." – Ira Motorelli [09:00]
• "The government chose to play party politics even during a crisis, prioritizing political appearances over effective disaster response." – Motorelli [16:48]

Discussion Highlights: Ira Motorelli details her firsthand observations from Valencia, noting the failure of early warning systems and the government's dismissive attitude toward imminent threats. She uncovers how financial incentives may have influenced the government's reporting practices, deliberately categorizing deceased individuals as 'missing' to avoid the €72,000 payout required per family. This systemic issue mirrors the inefficient and potentially corrupt response seen in Hurricane Helene, where similar discrepancies in reporting and aid distribution were evident.

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2. Voters Reject Dems: Ballot Measures and Issue vs. Party Loyalty

Contributor: Spencer Snyder

Overview: In the second segment, Spencer Snyder delves into the intriguing trend where voters support Democratic-aligned ballot measures but simultaneously vote for Republican candidates. This paradox challenges the traditional understanding of party loyalty and policy alignment, revealing a more nuanced voter behavior landscape.

Key Points:

• Ballot Measure Success: States like Alaska, Missouri, and Nebraska saw voters approve measures such as higher minimum wages and paid sick leave, which are typically Democratic priorities.
• Candidate vs. Policy Voting: Despite supporting these measures, the same voters often elected Republican officials, indicating a preference for specific policies over party affiliation.
• Supermajority Requirements: Some states have introduced supermajority thresholds (e.g., 60% in Florida) for passing ballot measures, which could influence future policy outcomes and voter engagement.
• Reproductive Rights Contradictions: Voters in states like Missouri approved constitutional protections for abortion rights while predominantly supporting Republican candidates known for opposing such measures.

Notable Quotes:

• "Most people are going to say yes to material changes that directly impact their lives, regardless of party lines." – Spencer Snyder [24:19]
• "Ballot measures are one of the few ways for people to engage with direct democracy." – Snyder [26:23]
• "Voters are less interested in campaign promises that may or may not come to fruition and more in concrete, material outcomes that directly affect their everyday lives." – Snyder [27:55]

Discussion Highlights: Snyder analyzes the voter behavior data, emphasizing that tangible benefits from ballot measures (like increased minimum wages and paid sick leave) resonate strongly with voters, even if their chosen candidates do not champion these policies. This shift suggests a move towards issue-based voting, where voters prioritize specific legislative outcomes over party allegiance. The segment also explores the strategic responses from political parties, such as the push for supermajority requirements, which may serve to counteract the success of independent ballot initiatives and maintain traditional party power structures.

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3. TikTok Ban: First Amendment and National Security Implications

Guest: Jamil Jaffer, Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University

Overview: The final segment addresses the contentious topic of the proposed TikTok ban in the United States. The discussion focuses on the legal battles surrounding the ban, its implications for the First Amendment, and the broader concerns regarding free speech and national security.

Key Points:

• Legal Ruling: A federal appeals court upheld a law banning TikTok unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is sold to an American entity.
• First Amendment Concerns: Critics argue that the ban infringes upon free speech rights, setting a dangerous precedent for government censorship of social media platforms.
• Strict Scrutiny vs. Intermediate Scrutiny: The court applied a high level of deference to national security claims, despite a lack of concrete evidence linking TikTok to actual foreign manipulation.
• Potential Slippery Slope: The ban raises concerns about future governmental actions against other platforms, potentially leading to broader restrictions on free speech and access to diverse media sources.

Notable Quotes:

• "At the core of the First Amendment is the idea that individuals get to decide for themselves which ideas are worth listening to." – Jamil Jaffer [41:19]
• "The Supreme Court is going to be very wary of going down this road because we don't want to be in that company." – Ira Motorelli [47:01]
• "These kinds of bans, I think for good reason have historically been associated with autocratic and rights-abusing regimes." – Motorelli [47:58]

Discussion Highlights: Jaffer provides a comprehensive breakdown of the court's decision, explaining how the legislation circumvented traditional First Amendment protections by prioritizing national security over free expression without sufficient evidence. He critiques the government's approach, highlighting the speculative nature of the claims against TikTok and emphasizing the potential erosion of free speech rights. Motorelli echoes these concerns, drawing parallels to historical cases where similar government actions were deemed unconstitutional. The segment underscores the precarious balance between national security interests and fundamental constitutional freedoms, warning of the long-term implications such bans may have on democratic society.

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Conclusion

In this episode of Breaking Points, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti effectively dissect multifaceted issues that intersect governance, voter behavior, and constitutional law. By bringing in experts like Ira Motorelli and Jamil Jaffer, the hosts facilitate a nuanced exploration of how government actions during crises and policy implementations reflect broader systemic challenges. Additionally, the examination of voter paradoxes in supporting policies over party candidates reveals shifting allegiances and priorities within the electorate. The discussion on the TikTok ban serves as a critical reminder of the ongoing tensions between national security measures and the preservation of constitutional rights, highlighting the need for vigilant protection of free speech in the digital age.

For listeners seeking a deeper understanding of these topics, Breaking Points continues to provide independent media perspectives, advocating for accountability and informed civic participation.

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Resources and Further Reading:

• Ira Motorelli's Investigative Work: 21st Century Wire
• Knight First Amendment Institute: knightcolumbia.org
• Court Rulings on TikTok Ban: Available through federal appeals court documentation and legal analyses.

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Note: This summary intentionally excludes advertisements, promotional content, and non-relevant sections to focus solely on the substantive discussions presented in the episode.

Transcript

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[DJ Dramos]

Sudden, these floods just ravaged through all of these neighborhoods in Valencia and left hundreds, if not thousands dead as a result. So completely reckless response from the government.

[James Lee]

What happens when the greatest threat during a natural disaster isn't the storm itself, but the response? My name's James Lee and you're watching beyond the headlines on on breaking points here in the United States. Hurricane Helene devastated communities across western North Carolina in late September of this year. While official reports list just over 100 fatalities, survivors and volunteers on the ground believe the true death toll is far higher. Allegations of mismanagement, delayed aid and a lack of transparency have left many questioning whether the government truly has the public's best interests at heart. But are these failures unique to America? Because across the Atlantic, Spain faced its own catastrophic disaster just a few weeks later. The floods in Valencia were some of the worst in the country's history. And like Hurricane Helene, they've exposed deep flaws in the government's response. From ignored warnings to suppressed death tolls and widespread mismanagement of aid. The parallels are striking. So today we're going to explore what we can learn from these disasters and if they reveal a deeper crisis in government corruption in countries around the world. So joining me today is Iera Motorelli. She's an investigative journalist and associate editor at 21st Century Wire, and she was recently on the ground in Valencia. Her reporting has uncovered shocking details about what really happened during and after the floods, something the mainstream media has failed to do. Ira, thank you so much for joining us today.

[DJ Dramos]

Thanks so much for having me, James.

[James Lee]

What I want to start off saying is I think Americans, we often only focus on domestic stories in our media. But when I came across your reporting, I noticed that there were so many parallels between what happened in Spain and what happened in North Carolina with Hurricane Helene, which we're going to get into. But for, for our audience who may not know too much about what happened in Spain and Valencia, can you give us a brief recap of that disaster?

[DJ Dramos]

Yeah, for sure. This happened over a month ago. So on the 29th of October, there was some really devastating floods over here in Valencia, particularly in flood prone areas, very urban areas. The government was very aware that these were flood prone prone areas. But over the years, they just kept building out in these areas and pushing people towards this region of Valencia. This was, you know, marked as the worst natural disaster that's ever hit Spain before. And one of the things that really compounded the tragedy massively was the fact that the early warning systems failed. So we have, just like you guys in the US we have the Spanish meteorological agency called I Met Here, issued a red weather alert in the morning of the floods. But the Valencian president, Carlos Martin, kind of dismissed it, ignored it and told people, you know, that there was, there was nothing to be worried about, downplayed it and People went about their days, and all of a sudden these floods just ravaged through all of these neighborhoods in Valencia and left hundreds, if not thousands dead as a result. So completely reckless response from the government. Very similar to what happened with Hurricane Helene.

[James Lee]

Yeah. When you speak, when you mentioned the failure of the early warnings, that kind of brought back memories of what happened in Maui with the wildfires that happened there. Many people on the ground saying that they got no warning of that. And then you also just mentioned the death toll high into the thousands, which I don't believe is the actual death count. And I know that when you actually went on the ground and talked to people and recorded exactly what they saw, you know, one of the most shocking parts of your reporting was this discrepancy in death toll. So can you tell us a little bit about what the locals are saying and why they think the number is so much higher and what kind of evidence is there to support those claims?

[DJ Dramos]

Yeah, 100%. Prefacing this with, I was in Valencia for five days, my first visit there, and then for another two days. I just came back last weekend. I've spoken to about 30 or 40 neighbors, maybe more, when I was on the ground, kind of just start conversations. And every neighbor wants to tell you what they saw. And every single person I spoke to had told me that they'd seen more than one body being either pulled out of a garage or people being stuck on the highway on the night of the floods. And just hearing how all these cars were being washed away on the highway and, you know, they were all beeping and the beeping sounds got more faint and less and less cars were beeping. So in other words, people were literally dying. And these people that were trapped, that were watching this horrifically happening in front of their eyes, unable to do anything about it. And I spoke and saw a bunch of things myself when I was there. So let's start with the government is reporting this as 220 plus deaths. Right now. The missing toll is in the 1,800 to 2,000. Initially was at that. At that count. But I've spoken to various neighbors who had, and I go through this in my investigation too, who had ident either family members as dead or friends or neighbors or such as dead, effectively steamed the bodies and identified them. And yet family members were marked as missing instead of dead. And one of the reasons I believe why this is happening is because for every deceased person, the Spanish government needs to allocate around €72,000 to the family members. And one of the big Clues that I got when I was on the ground was I went into a garage that was flooded. The floor below, I later found out, had a bunch of bodies still in it. So I was on the first floor, and the floor below that was completely inundated still. On my first visit, there were three body bags in that one garage that I went into. And I filmed them. I went in and I filmed them. And then I talked to the locals about what they saw, and they saw people being pulled out of this garage specifically. And I went back two weeks later. And the state forces, whether that be, you know, the military or whoever is pulling these bodies out, needs to mark these areas, garages mostly, or tunnels or. So they need to put a little mark on the garages. An S specifically, which means sa, which means we remove bodies from here. And so I asked the neighbor, where is that? Because we can clearly see the body bags, but we can't actually see that they've marked that. They said they don't do that, because then you could obviously kind of go around all these towns, count the numbers, and see that massive discrepancy. So neighbors on the ground believe that there are thousands of people that have perished and that most of these bodies are in the sea at this point. They've been washed into the sea. And every single neighbor I talked to saw bodies. So it's much, much higher, I believe, than what they're saying.

[James Lee]

Wow. So you're saying that there's actually a financial incentive, from the government's perspective, to classify people as either missing or just forget about them completely, because if they are reported as dead, there is some coverage that the government needs to provide for the families. And I think in the U.S. you know, we witness complete dysfunction, some would say corruption, kind of like what you're talking about in terms of the federal government's response. You had people like yourself, you know, or volunteers, aid organizations going in and having to step in and help. And we also heard reports here of those organizations being turned away. It was kind of a complete mess. And I think you talked about something similar happening in Spain as well. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

[DJ Dramos]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, when I first heard about FEMA turning away volunteers in Hurricane Helen, I was completely stunned at that happening. And then I saw it for myself when I went to Valencia. Different organization, this case, the Red Cross, I spoke to and interviewed also in the investigation, an interview with an independent aid worker that was on the ground at a distribution center that was next to where I was sleeping. So I was in this distribution center quite a lot gathering things for neighbors. And so, and I came across her and she said, I want, I want to tell you what's been going on here because she was really visibly upset. And she said, every day I come here independently, I just want to hand out things to the neighbors. And the Red Cross follows me around and monitors what I'm doing and impedes me from handing these donations out to neighbors. So, you know, these, these items are being thrown away. The Red Cross is instead asking people for financial donations, seems what they're most interested in. And when I was on the ground, I saw a couple of Red Cross cars kind of just sitting idly there, not doing much. And not once did I actually see the Red Cross handing something out. And another volunteer that I was there with told me that she saw the Red Cross putting a big camera on their car and filming themselves handing something out to the neighbors. Something that we've never seen on the ground. But you know, they were doing this for their social media channels to show that they're there helping, but they weren't. The big majority of people that were there on the ground helping were mostly volunteers. And this is also something that a neighbor tells me about in another interview, that neither the state forces nor these human rights organizations or NGOs are actually helping. That it's mostly individuals and volunteers and nobody else. And on top of that, we have a massive media blackout around this story too.

[James Lee]

Yeah. So I wanted to ask you about the media because I think at least from our perspective here in the States, we have a very, very high, I think media distrust is probably at an all time high, perhaps warranted. Right. In relation to some of these natural disasters, the reporting that they've done. Right. Always See, you know, it's funny because we see these fact checks, right? People on the ground are saying, hey, FEMA is blocking aid. And then they would do these short segments or articles saying, oh, we fact checked that, we've called fema. They said that's not happening. And then they just kind of move on. I know that you're on the ground there. So when I read like some of the stuff that you talk about, like claims of the media actually misinforming people or even sometimes staging events, can you. Or staging certain events to portray a certain narrative. Can you go into that a little bit? And also, what's the general public sentiment that people have towards mainstream media in Europe?

[DJ Dramos]

I mean, in Europe, as in the entire world, people don't trust the mainstream media anymore. Very rightfully so I should say on this particular instance, there were a couple of different instances that we can go into that kind of went viral and then one that I saw myself. So a couple of things that went viral around this was reports and videos of journalists, or a journalist in this case, kind of ducking down, covering himself in mud after being completely clean in a, in a, you know, zone full of mud everywhere. Completely clean, meaning he had just arrived. So covering himself in mud real quick and then grabbing the microphone and saying, you know, I'm ready, let's go. And this, this was caught on camera. So that was one for a big outlet here called Horizonte. And then to what I saw, you know, minutes, 20 minutes or so after I had left this garage and seen these body bags and just spoken to completely traumatized neighbors, I see another big outlet in the street with their microphone kind of waiting and setting up. And I start asking, what's going on here? What are they setting up for? And the neighbors tell me, this is. The police is about to march down this street together with the military, kind of in a, in a show of, you know, we're helping so much here. And look at us. And those were the stories that they were covering when we were seeing, you know, not that much military on the ground, very little police, to be honest. And when we were seeing them, they were often seen smoking, scrolling on their phones, kind of chilling while volunteers were doing the heavy lifting.

[James Lee]

Yeah, that's so disturbing to hear all of these stories and where my mind goes. And when a population deals with something like this, there's almost no other path for them to start going down other than to think, okay, is there some sort of conspiracy going on here? When you talk about these certain powerful nefarious figures or institutions taking advantage of these disasters here we have stories about maybe there's deeper motives at play, real estate interests covering up, you know, the mismanagement that's going on, facilitating a land grab, something like that. So I'm just curious, what is your overall opinion about these kinds of ideas? And is there anything on the ground that would suggest any truth to these things?

[DJ Dramos]

So I think, you know, not to get too conspiratorial here, but I think that, of course there was a lot of money that was made out of this tragedy, and the governments very obviously could care less. There's massive protests on the ground that are not being covered by the media because people want both the Valencian president and Federal Sanchez, who's the president of Spain, to step down. This could have really easily avoided. And they chose not to. They chose to play party politics. Even the Valencian president was at an award ceremony on the Day of the Bloods. So, you know, it just gets worse and worse the more you talk about it. But I think, of course, in this instance, it's opportunity and money that was available that they made that's not going to get handed out. So where is that money going to go? Who knows?

[Spencer Snyder]

Yeah.

[James Lee]

Well, we appreciate you for going on the ground. And I think, you know, between all of us, independent media, I think is the future. I think mainstream media has shown that they're going to. They've added, they've abdicated their duty. So it's kind of up to us to pick up the pieces there. So before I let you go, I do want to, I do want you to tell the audience about the kind of reporting that you do and where they would be able to go to find more of your work.

[DJ Dramos]

Yeah, thanks so much. So I work for 21st century. Ya. You can find all that work on my profile, you can find the investigation link to my Twitter and yeah, I'm mostly active on Twitter and you can see a catalog of all my investigations and work on 21st century wire.

[James Lee]

Well, thank you so much, Ira, for joining us today on Breaking Points and look forward to talking to you again soon.

[DJ Dramos]

Thanks for having me.

[James Lee]

That's it for me today. If you want more stories that the mainstream media is unwilling to tell, please check out and subscribe to my YouTube channel 5149 with James Lee. The link will be in the description below. As always, thank you so much for your time today and keep on tuning into Breaking Points. Ch, ch ch. Chumba looking for excitement.

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[Spencer Snyder]

November 5, 2024, right after voting for Donald Trump, millions of people turned their ballots over and voted for things on ballot measures that Trump will almost certainly never give them. Abortion as a constitutional right or a higher minimum wage, paid leave. These are all promises of the Democrats and clearly people want them. Yet when it came time to vote for the candidate who supports those things, millions of people chose the other person. So why is that? Alaska, Missouri and Nebraska all had ballot measures having to do with paid sick leave. If you are, for example, a part time worker in Nebraska, you probably don't get sick leave since as of 2020 only 11.6% of part time workers there have any kind of paid sick time. So if you're not in that group, you will probably at some point have to choose between staying home sick and earning rent money. And hopefully you don't have a job handling people's food. Let's look at Trump's position on paid sick length. There is nothing from his campaign website and there is nothing in the official GOP platform. Conversely, Tim Walls recently signed a bill establishing a statewide paid sick leave program. During Harris campaign, she listed paid medical leave as priority and medical leave would generally include sick days. So if you're one of the 34 million workers who lack paid sick leave and that was your concern, Harris gives you a lot more to work with. These states obviously went for Trump. They also voted for Republican governors, senators, and Alaska gave their one congressional district to a Republican. Yet after 60% of Nebraska voted for Trump, 74% voted for paid sick leave, as did Alaska and Missouri.

[James Lee]

When we think about politics through a two party lens, there's this sort of assumption that you can categorize all the issues in one or the other. And then there's this assumption that goes along with that, that if people are voting for candidates from one party, they necessarily would vote the way that you would assume on all those issues. And that's just not true. I think that's never been true. But I think that's increasingly, you know, the sort of affiliation of the parties with what they stand for is becoming destabilized. So I grew up, for example, in northern New Jersey, just outside New York City, all Democrat in local politics. And so functionally, you have a one party system there. So ballot initiatives present an opportunity to vote on a policy directly apart from the party politics of wherever you live.

[Spencer Snyder]

So let's take minimum wage. Since 2002, there have been 26 measures for statewide wage raises. Democrats have talked a lot about raising the minimum wage. And if you want a higher minimum wage, Harris again made the most sense because she supported raising the minimum wage, though on her campaign website it only said that she'll fight for a higher minimum wage. She eventually committed to a $15 minimum wage on October 22, which is still lower than the living wage in most places. And it was probably too late for enough people to notice. But Trump is decidedly worse on minimum wage. His website, and not to mention the official RNC platform, does not mention minimum wage at all. Despite this, people went to the polls and voted for both minimum wage and Trump. Such is the case with Missouri and Alaska, which both voted to raise the minimum wage after first voting for Trump. In fact, out of the 26 minimum wage measures so far this century, all have passed except for California this last election.

[James Lee]

California, I think, is a, is an outlier that does bear some consideration. For a long time, California has been kind of like the ballot initiative dystopia. The minimum wage increase, a very small minimum wage increase, was 1 to $2. And they already have a minimum wage that's tacked to inflation, so they're going to see a raise in January anyway. So the specifics around that, I think have more to do with the, with the sort of broader political culture and what's going on in California than a specific vote against wage increases.

[Spencer Snyder]

But generally this is a winner because.

[James Lee]

Most people work for a living and lots of people make low wages. So if you ask people, should you make more money? Most people are going to say yes.

[Spencer Snyder]

But no issue exemplifies this more than the issue the Democrats drive the hardest.

[James Lee]

In the fight for reproductive rights. You mentioned reproductive rights.

[Ira Motorelli]

Abortion, Abortion.

[James Lee]

Reproductive rights, Reproductive rights and freedom. What do you want to say, Madam Vice President?

[Ira Motorelli]

I'm just so sorry.

[Spencer Snyder]

Why is it that in the state of Missouri, 53% of voters voted to put abortion in the state constitution, but 40% of those voters voted for Kamala. That means over 1.5 million people voted in favor of protecting reproductive rights, but against the party which is most passionate about it. And just to recap, Trump has said abortion should be left to the states. Every Trump Supreme Court justice voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. And his VP, Vance stated in 2022.

[James Lee]

I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.

[Spencer Snyder]

Though Vance has walked back that claim recently to fall in line with Trump's position. And the official party position is to protect and defend a vote of the people from within the states. Essentially, they're shifting their attack on reproductive rights to focus on action at the state level, where ballot measures play a critical role in codifying those rights. So to be clear, it's not that conservatives feel so strongly about states rights. Rather, it's their way of rolling back reproductive rights in their entirety. Out of 10 states that had abortion on the ballot, seven of the measures passed. New York, Colorado, Missouri, Arizona, Nevada, Maryland, and Montana. Only three, South Dakota, Nebraska and Florida, did not.

[James Lee]

If we looked at polls going back years, we would see that a majority of Americans supported some measure of abortion rights. What ballot initiatives do is they sort of bring that reality to the fore. So in 2022, when the Supreme Court issued their Dobbs decision, when they overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion protections, the Republican legislators in Kansas rushed a vote onto the ballot to allow them to ban abortion. And you know, they got crushed. They lost by something like 60%.

[Spencer Snyder]

And actually, a majority of Florida voters also chose to put abortion in the state constitution, but didn't meet the 60% threshold. And so even Florida is mostly in favor of protecting abortion rights, even though Trump won that state by a large margin. And, and wait, why Does Florida require 60%? So in 2006, Florida passed an amendment to the Constitution that would require a super majority or at least 60% of the vote to pass all future ballot measures. And that amendment passed with, ironically, only 57% of the vote, the same amount of people who voted in favor of protecting abortion rights in Florida. Ten other states also have some sort of supervisor majority rule on the books. For instance, New Hampshire requires 2/3 of the vote to pass an amendment, and Arizona currently requires a super majority only to pass tax related measures. But in addition to the issues I've already talked about here, with increasing frequency, ballot measures have been used to take up causes like marijuana legalization, redistricting, expanding Medicaid. And so what would seem to be A direct response to the success of these ballot measures are amendments from requiring a super majority to pass ballot measures in the first place. They've been popping up all over the country. Ironically, these amendments are being voted on through the same ballot measures legislators are trying to make harder to pass.

[James Lee]

So we see an increase in the past few years of legislative moves to try to limit the direct vote by raising the threshold to win, raising the threshold to qualify, you know, making it harder to gather signatures, making you gather them in more places.

[Spencer Snyder]

All these ballot measures have something important in common. They're all dealing with material issues and in particular ones that voters might find it hard to have a say in through other means. So minimum wage hikes and paid sick leave are pretty obvious material issues, but reproductive rights are as well, because unfettered access to abortion is often framed as a right to autonomy over one's body. My body, my choice being denied necessary emergency care, especially in red states where providers may be reluctant until or unless the life of the mother is actually in jeopardy. That is a critical issue. But one of the most common reasons people end pregnancies, wanted or otherwise, are financial. Think about the couple, for example, who are barely scraping by with one kid, and they know a second child would just be a financial burden they can't do so. Having the right to self determination over one's body is obviously human right, but you can't separate that from one's material conditions. So my takeaway from this is that people want material change and will vote to affirm this when it's presented with clear and predictable outcomes. Voters are less interested, though, in campaign promises that may or may not come to fruition if the candidate wins, or in declarations of theoretical support, neither of which help working people pay their rent or feed their kids. And ballot measures are one of the few ways for people to engage with direct democracy. So if the Democrats ever want to see the inside of the White House again, they would do well to embrace more than paltry messages of general support and start committing to the concrete, material things that voters keep saying they will show up for. And that will do it for me. My name is Spencer Snyder. If you found this video interesting, make sure you are subscribed to Breaking Points. You can find me on Twitter or at my own channel. Liking and sharing always helps. Thank you to Breaking Points. Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one.

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[Ira Motorelli]

Obvious why this case would be limited to TikTok or limited to to China. Once you accept the idea that the government can protect us from foreign manipulation by preventing us from accessing foreign media, there are lots of other platforms the government might become concerned about.

[James Lee]

Do national security interests outweigh your constitutional right to free speech? My name is James Lee and you're watching beyond the headlines on Breaking points foreign of 2024. Congress passed a law that would ban TikTok if their Chinese parent company, ByteDance, refused to sell the app to an American buyer. And just a few weeks ago, a federal court of appeals upheld that law. The government claims that it's protecting Americans from foreign manipulation and data theft, but critics warn the decision weakens the First Amendment and sets a dangerous precedent for for free expression. So to help us understand what's at stake, I'm joined today by Jamil Jaffer. He is the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Jameel, thank you so much for joining us today on Breaking Points.

[Ira Motorelli]

Sure. Thanks for the invitation.

[James Lee]

Absolutely. I guess just to catch people up, can you summarize for us what the recent ruling was from the D.C. circuit Court? Specifically, why did the judges decide that banning TikTok does not violate the First Amendment of the Constitution? A term that I've heard being used is something called strict scrutiny. That's tough to say, strict scrutiny. So can you break that down for us in layman's terms so we can all understand what is going on here?

[Ira Motorelli]

Yeah. So, I mean, the first thing you have to recognize is that, you know, this is sometimes characterized as a ban on a foreign company operating in the United States, and that is not actually an accurate characterization of what's going on here. The effect of the ban is to prevent 170 million or so Americans from accessing a media platform that they would like to access. So it's a restriction on the rights of U.S. citizens and U.S. residents who want to consume particular expressive products, but also participate in the conversation that takes place on TikTok, you know, share their own videos, watch other people's videos, engage with the various communities that have been built on that, you know, on that platform. The. The D.C. circuit understood that the law restricts Americans First Amendment rights. And, and so, you know, started with basically the premise that, you know, this law is subject to scrutiny under the First Amendment. Now, you know, in some ways, that's unremarkable, but worth noting that the Biden administration did argue that the law shouldn't even be subject to First Amendment scrutiny, that basically the First Amendment was not implicated here at all, which is kind of a crazy argument. But the court rejected that argument. Then the question became, well, what kind of scrutiny? Like, how. How closely should the court examine the government's motivations here and examine the law itself? And that's the debate that you referenced, this debate about strict scrutiny versus intermediate scrutiny. There were two judges on the court who believed that strict scrutiny was the right standard. Another judge thought that intermediate scrutiny was the right standard. But ultimately all the judges concluded that the ban satisfies First Amendment requirements. So the, you know, this dispute over the level of scrutiny didn't turn out to be consequential. You know, the, The. The. The ban was up, upheld by all three judges. Basically, the argument. So there were really two arguments for the ban. One has to do with data collection. The theory is that TikTok collects a lot of data about its users. It obviously does collect A lot of data about its users, just like other social media platforms do. And so one justification for the ban is, well, this is a way of limiting data collection by TikTok. The other justification that the government offered was that TikTok is controlled by a Chinese corporation. That Chinese corporation, ByteDance, is under the influence of the Chinese government. And at one point or another, the Chinese government might decide, well, we want to use ByteDance and TikTok as a means of propagandizing or manipulating Americans. And there's a kind of degree of speculation here. I mean, some people would say a large degree of speculation. Even the government conceded there's no evidence. They have no evidence that TikTok is actually being used in this way. But this was the, you know, the fear that motivated, or at least the government said in court, this is the fear that motivated the. The ban.

[James Lee]

Yeah, I know that you co wrote an op ed in the New York Times recently where you talked about this a little bit. You argued that the court gave, quote, near categorical deference to the government's national security claims. Like you said, we haven't been shown evidence of these claims. The DOJ did release that report, I believe, a couple months ago. Almost the whole thing was redacted. So we didn't really actually see any of the evidence that they were talking about. So is that normal, or can the government just use national security if they want to pass laws that basically push up against what's permitted by the constitution?

[Ira Motorelli]

Yeah, well, I mean, unfortunately, there is a long history in this country of the courts deferring to the government in national security cases. Now, there is a kind of counter history, or at least a thread of. Of case law that is inconsistent with that, that sort of larger body of national security case law. And that thread of case law involves the First Amendment. So when, you know, while it's true the courts generally defer to the government in national security cases, they have tended to be less deferential in First Amendment cases because the courts understand that free speech is so important to our democracy and the integrity of public discourse is part of what gives legitimacy to the government's national security policies. In other words, the only reason we have faith, to the extent we do have faith, that the government's national security policies have democratic legitimacy is because we believe people can debate those policies openly and that the debate is informed. And so when the government invokes national security as a means of constraining that debate, the courts have been less deferential. So in this particular case, the judges were Very deferential to the government. They basically accepted at face value that the government was motivated by those two concerns. I mentioned data collection and foreign manipulation. Even though the legislative record makes it very, very clear that many legislators were motivated by disagreement with particular categories of content. There were lots of legislators who said this quite candidly. They said, look, I don't like the videos I see on TikTok. Like, they are encouraging our kids to do terrible things. They are calling into question our government's policies. They are pro Russia, they are pro Palestine or pro Hamas, is the way that they put it. And the justification, the actual justification for the law, which legislators were quite open about, was let's suppress stuff that we disagree with. And the court dismissed all of that in one phrase. The court said, oh, there were some. It's true, there were some stray comments in the legislative record. It wasn't straight comments. The whole legislative record is replete with those kinds of. Those kinds of comments. So that's one sense in which the court was, you know, extremely deferential to, you know, the government's factual assertions here, even though the evidence was inconsistent with those assertions. Another sense is when it came to. So both under strict scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny, the court has to look to what other ways the government would have had to achieve its stated goals. And here there are lots of obvious ways the government could achieve its stated goals without banning Americans from accessing this app. So, for example, when it comes to foreign manipulation, the government says that the concern is that Americans are being covertly manipulated. In other words, the Chinese Communist Party is or may at one point manipulate them covertly by fixing the algorithm or screwing with the algorithm so that Americans see only what the Chinese government wants them to see. Now, again, it's highly speculative, but if that is the concern, it's not obvious why transparency doesn't address it. Why can't the government just tell Americans we think this is propaganda?

[James Lee]

Yeah, if we were to steel man that argument a little bit in terms of the TikTok ban, even if the government hasn't provided this concrete evidence for us, and we say, okay, let's go with a more precautionary approach to this, and let's say TikTok is controlled by China. They're using it exactly how we say they're using it for manipulating us to collect our data, this and that, and there are other apps that us Americans can use to voice our opinion. Just do that. How do you respond to that kind of argument?

[Ira Motorelli]

Well, I mean, I think it's a It's a fine argument for the government to make to Americans. Like, if the government wants to say to Americans, use those other apps rather than this one, there's no reason the government can't do that. But I think that you know, sort of core to the First Amendment, like at the very center of the First Amendment is this idea that individuals get to decide for themselves which ideas are worth listening to, which media to consume. I mean, this is the center of the First Amendment. And the government can participate in public discourse about the platforms or about media. The government can say, you know, don't watch msnbc. It's, you know, it's propaganda. The government can say, don't watch Fox News. It's propaganda. That's, you know, fine. But what it can't do is say, you know, we're going to shut down MSNBC because we think you're being manipulated. I mean, this is just First Amendment 101. And I think the government's arguments are inconsistent with it. But I just wanted to say something about the data collection argument, too, because here, you know, the court was also extremely deferential to the Justice Department. The Justice Department was saying, well, this is about preventing TikTok from collecting data, but every other social media platform is collecting the same data or even more data about Americans. And this law doesn't do anything about those other actors. And to the extent the concern is, well, those other actors aren't controlled by China and they're not effectively puppets for the Chinese Communist Party. Well, the government itself, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, has observed in formal reports that China doesn't need tick tock in order to collect this kind of information that Americans. You can buy this kind of information on the open market. You can buy it from data brokers. And we've seen very recently that China can also collect information, much more sensitive information, just by hacking into American databases. And so it's not clear that this law really makes even a dent on, in the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to collect information about Americans. The much more direct way of restricting data collection is by restricting what data corporations can collect.

[James Lee]

And I'm not sure. Yeah. How much interest Congress has in doing that, in particular given some of the lobbying around big tech and things like that. But let's say, okay, so let's try to chart a path forward here at this point. I know Trump has talked verbally about doing something. He says he's going to take a look at it. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I guess one avenue that is clear going forward is that if this case does get picked up by the Supreme Court, how do you think the Justices are likely to rule, given on historical precedent, some of the past cases and given some of the comments that you referenced before about members of Congress explicitly stating that we're banning this app because of the content on it we don't like. So how damaging are those statements to the government case?

[Ira Motorelli]

I mean, I guess I'm not ready to make predictions, but I accept that. I will say that I think that TikTok will get a more sympathetic hearing in the Supreme Court than it did in the D.C. circuit. I mean, there is case law in the supreme court. There's a 1964 case called Lamont versus Postmaster General which involved a law that restricted Americans from receiving foreign propaganda in the mail. It basically required them to register with the post office if they wanted to receive communist propaganda from, from, from abroad. And the Supreme Court struck down that law in 1964 is actually the first time the Supreme Court struck down a federal statute under the First Amendment, struck down that law because the court said it imposed a burden on Americans right to receive information from abroad. And that was a case in which there was no dispute that what Americans were receiving from abroad was foreign propaganda. And even then, and even though it wasn't a ban, it was just a burden, the court struck that statute down. So I think that's a really, a really strong precedent for, for TikTok here and for TikTok's users. And if the court departs from it, it'll be a pretty big deal. I guess I'll just say one more thing like just, just getting away from doctrine, even apart from doctrine, these kinds of bans, like there's no precedent for the US Government banning Americans from accessing a media organization like this. There's no precedent. Like there are, there are cases in which the government tries to ban people from accessing certain information. And the Pentagon Papers case was like one of those cases where the, you know, the government tried to get the court to restrict the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing this classified history of the Vietnam War or stories about this classified history. And even then the court struck it down. Right. But here we're going a step further and saying it's essentially the government saying, well, don't just prevent the Times from publishing that story. Shut down the Times because they might publish that story. These kinds of bans, I think for good reason have historically been associated with autocratic and rights abusing regimes like that's when we think of these kinds of ban bans on foreign media, those are the regimes that come to mind. And I think that the Supreme Court is going to be very wary of going down this road because we don't want to be in that company. And the First Amendment is supposed to keep us, keep us out of that company.

[James Lee]

Yeah, well, we'll see what happens there. Oftentimes there's no precedent unless until there is a precedent, you know what I mean? And I think the last question I want to ask is around this more broader context of we're kind of living in an age of information warfare. Right. Because it used to be that publishing used to be controlled by just a few people, a few institutions, and now it's much more democratized. So it's hard for me not to think of a slippery slope where today maybe they get rid of TikTok and those users, let's say they migrate to other platforms. Let's say one of them is X now, let's say they start saying stuff on there they don't like. And X I know has significant foreign ownership in this case Saudi Arabia. So let's say one day they decide, okay, well we don't like Saudi Arabia anymore. That's a foreign adversary. We get rid of X. So, you know, reading the tea leaves a little bit, what do you see as the future of the First Amendment in the United States? You know, the attacks on it. And what kind of effect does that have on democracy overall?

[Ira Motorelli]

Well, I mean, first, I think that you're absolutely right. That not obvious why this case would be limited to TikTok or limited to China. Once you accept the idea that the government can protect us from foreign manipulation by preventing us from accessing foreign media, there are lots of other platforms the government might become concerned about. And you know, as you mentioned, like Musk has business interests all over the, all over the world. I mean, that's true of Zuckerberg too. Like any of these, you know, the people who own Bezos has business interests all over the world. And if your concern is, well, domestic Americans might be consuming media that has been influenced by foreign pressure, you know, why, why stop at TikTok? You know, why not give the government the ability to restrict our access to the Washington Post or to, to X or I really do think that, you know, once you, once you open this door, not obvious how you, how you close it, how you close it again and then your, you know, your broader question, I mean, you're right, you know, for a variety of reasons, including the rise of sort of autocracy around the world, but also technological change and these new communications platforms that have emerged over the last 20 years. You know, we're really in a totally new world. And you can't take for granted that the first amendment precedents that the courts, you know, set in the 1960s and 70s will be adhered to today. And, you know, to be fair, you can't take for granted that those precedents are the right ones for this new world we're living in today. And I suppose that, you know, in some ways is kind of exciting because we're kind of building, you know, we have to build this kind of new system to account for all of these changes. But it does feel like some of the freedoms that we have taken for granted are suddenly, you know, fragile. And, you know, these, these cases, like, like the Tick tock case will have a huge effect on what the free speech landscape looks like in five, 10 years.

[James Lee]

Yeah, we'll have to see how that all plays out. Thank you so much today for your insights. Jamil, is there anywhere you want to point the audience to if they want to learn more?

[Ira Motorelli]

Yeah, the Knight Institute. So knightcolumbia.org all right, awesome.

[James Lee]

Well, thank you so much again for coming on the show, and we'll see how all this plays out.

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