David Dunmoyer & Joe Lancaster: Should a 'Ban' on TikTok Be Enforced?

Summary

Future of Freedom Podcast Summary

Episode: David Dunmoyer & Joe Lancaster: Should a 'Ban' on TikTok Be Enforced?
Date: September 10, 2025
Host: Scot Bertram
Guests: David Dunmoyer (Texas Public Policy Foundation) & Joe Lancaster (Reason)

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Future of Freedom centers on the heated controversy surrounding the so-called TikTok “ban” in the United States: Is it truly a ban, or a justified national security measure? Host Scot Bertram moderates an in-depth, civil discussion, first with David Dunmoyer (supporting the enforcement as a cybersecurity necessity), then with Joe Lancaster (who challenges both the law and the manner of its (non-)enforcement on rule-of-law grounds). The conversation examines the legislation's intentions, First Amendment concerns, executive power, consequences for users and business, and broader issues of governance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Is It a “Ban” or Cybersecurity Measure?

Guest: David Dunmoyer ([00:47]–[16:20])

• Legislation Framing:
  Dunmoyer argues that referring to the law as a TikTok “ban” is misleading, as the law provides TikTok an option: divest from Chinese ownership or exit the U.S. market.
  • “I choose not to call it a ban because I don't want to use the CCP talking points here. We're asking if you divest from the very country you say you're divested from, you can continue to do business as usual.” ([02:49])
• Transparency & Data Privacy:
  U.S. companies face regulatory oversight and must offer users data transparency and opt-outs; TikTok, by contrast, lacks such mechanisms, leaving Americans unaware how their data is used or where it's stored.
  • “Any free market transaction requires transparency at the front end. So I know what I'm trading or giving up in exchange for that service.” ([06:06])
• Evidence of Abuse & Opacity:
  Dunmoyer stresses the difficulty in finding “concrete evidence” due to TikTok’s design:
  • “That's kind of the whole conundrum here... The very opacity that they've built into their algorithm and in their company is we don't fully know how they're using this personal information.” ([05:41])
• Comparison With Chinese Version (Douyin):
  The Chinese version is educational and motivational, while the U.S. version encourages addictive consumption:
  • “China's fought a war over opium once. I think this is the second iteration of it... In China the number one desired professional career for kids is to be an astronaut. In America it's to be an influencer...” ([07:58])
• National Security & First Amendment Concerns:
  Dunmoyer recalls SCOTUS’s unanimous upholding, grounding the law in national and consumer protection priorities:
  • “The Supreme Court of the United States upheld this legislation unanimously. And they see it through the lens of national security…” ([10:28])
• Potential for Slippery Slope:
  Acknowledges that the law could apply to other adversary-owned apps but considers national security interests paramount:
  • “If you're asking me is that dragnet worth this trade off here... I think that's a justifiable trade off.” ([12:48])
• Economic & Social Fallout:
  Recognizes hardship for influencers and small businesses but frames the trade-off as necessary:
  • “National security is national security and I think that is the transcendent force behind this... business owners are by their nature adaptive and resourceful… that transcendent force of national security, it’s a worthwhile, albeit short term painful trade off, [for] long term benefit.” ([14:23])

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2. The Case Against the TikTok Ban – and Its Non-Enforcement

Guest: Joe Lancaster ([16:22]–[31:57])

• Unprecedented Law Targeting a Single Company:
  Lancaster critiques the law for singling out TikTok and its parent, an approach unprecedented in U.S. legislative history:
  • “It is, by my, to my knowledge, the only time in American history that Congress singled out an individual company and said this company can no longer operate within our borders.” ([16:59])
• Selective Enforcement and Executive Power Concerns:
  Argues that not enforcing a “bad law” is even more dangerous than enforcing it, as it sets a precedent for executive noncompliance:
  • “It is much more dangerous to create the precedent that the President can simply ignore laws that he doesn't want to enforce.” ([18:16])
• Statutory Overreach and Tech Company Liability:
  Calls attention to the law’s reach—not just TikTok, but any American company servicing it can be fined massively:
  • “Any of those companies that still provide services to TikTok can be fined up to $5,000 for each user. In the United States, TikTok has 170 million users. So at the high end, that's $850 billion.” ([20:40])
  • Criticizes Attorney General Bondi’s unprecedented letters absolving companies retroactively and prospectively, bypassing legal limitations:
    “She produced from thin air the right to, in her words, irrevocably relinquish any future right to prosecute these companies, even though the law itself has a statute of limitations of five years...” ([21:27])
• Is This Really New? Selective Enforcement in U.S. History:
  Bertram prompts comparison to past presidential non-enforcement (e.g., the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare delay). Lancaster contends the TikTok case is more severe:
  • “This is a bit of a different animal in a lot of ways... It's a different thing altogether to say that you're just, you're going to ignore a law as passed by Congress...” ([24:05])
• Congressional Responsibility and Power Drift:
  Notes Congress hasn’t moved to repeal, nor shown will to challenge the executive inaction. Predicts continued abdication:
  • “The story of Congress...has been a gradual relinquishing of its powers to the executive in a lot of ways. For whatever reason, the members of Congress apparently feel...that power should be entrusted to a single person instead.” ([30:10])
• Broader Rule of Law Crisis:
  Warns that normalizing executive disregard for law could undermine constitutional checks and balances:
  • “[I] absolutely feel like this could be just the first step in a multi step process wherein the President does decide that, well, he has the ability to apply this same logic to any number of laws that he doesn't agree with...” ([28:05])
  • “If we allow this to stand...theoretically, there's no limit to what he could simply decide he doesn't have to abide by because it gets in the way of something else he wants to do.” ([29:11])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the “ban” language:
  Dunmoyer: “I choose not to call it a ban because I don't want to use the CCP talking points here.” ([02:49])
• On TikTok’s U.S. algorithm:
  Dunmoyer: “It's quite literally digital opium. How do we increase the engagement and addiction as fast as humanly possible to distract kids from meaningful development…” ([08:23])
• On data transparency and trade:
  Dunmoyer: “Any free market transaction requires transparency at the front end. So I know what I'm trading or giving up in exchange for that service.” ([06:06])
• On the rule of law:
  Lancaster: “It is much more dangerous to create the precedent that the President can simply ignore laws that he doesn't want to enforce.” ([18:16])
• On executive overreach:
  Lancaster: “She [Pam Bondi, Attorney General] produced from thin air the right to...irrevocably relinquish any future right to prosecute these companies, even though the law itself has a statute of limitations of five years.” ([21:27])
• On Congressional abdication:
  Lancaster: “The story of Congress...has been a gradual relinquishing of its powers to the executive in a lot of ways.” ([30:10])
• On long-term constitutional risk:
  Lancaster: “If we allow this to stand… theoretically, there's no limit to what he could simply decide he doesn't have to abide by because it gets in the way of something else he wants to do.” ([29:11])

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Important Timestamps

• [00:47]–[07:58]: Dunmoyer on origins, intent, transparency difference, and American vs. Chinese TikTok user experience.
• [10:28]: Discussion of national security concerns vs. First Amendment.
• [12:48]: Legislation’s potential expansion, slippery slope argument.
• [14:23]: Fallout for influencers, businesses, and inevitability of trade-offs.
• [16:59]: Lancaster on the law’s singularity and dangerous precedent.
• [18:16]: Dangers of selective enforcement.
• [20:40]: Law’s reach to American tech companies and magnitude of penalties.
• [22:32]: Discussion on presidential precedent and comparison to Obamacare enforcement delay.
• [26:22]: Responsibility of Congress and lack of repeal.
• [28:05]: Potential for broader constitutional crisis.
• [30:10]: Historic trend of Congressional power delegation to the executive.

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Conclusion

This episode provides a thoughtful, nuanced exploration of the TikTok “ban,” its real national security stakes, data privacy concerns, legislative intent, as well as the unintended—possibly constitutional—consequences of both the law itself and the government’s subsequent unwillingness to enforce it. Dunmoyer frames enforcement as critical national defense, while Lancaster is more alarmed by the precedent of selective enforcement and the erosion of the rule of law. Both recognize the complexity and gravity of the moment, as the intersection of technology, liberty, security, and governance takes center stage.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to Future of Freedom. I'm your host, Scott Bertram. Future of Freedom is a production of Franklin News Foundation. To support this show, go to franklinnews.org donate we bring you interviews today from different sides of the debate over enforcing the law that could ban TikTok in America. In a little bit, we'll be joined by Joe Lancaster, assistant editor at Reason. First we talk with David Dunmoyer, associate Vice President of Campaigns at Texas Public Policy foundation. [e-mail] David thanks so much for joining us.

[A]

Scott thank you so much for having me on the show.

[B]

Talking today about the proposed TikTok ban and maybe we put that ban in quotation marks as we discuss further in our conversation today. In fact, David, in a piece called the False Dichotomy to Ban or not to ban TikTok, you argue this is not a TikTok ban at all, but a cybersecurity measure. Walk us through a bit how the legislation works. Not legislation anymore, I suppose. And why you think calling it a ban is perhaps misleading.

[A]

Yeah, I think it's misleading actually. Just taking the statements from TikTok executives who in kind of the time leading up to this 2024 piece of legislation, there are a number of investigative hearings to understand, hey, TikTok, this company that's owned and operated by ByteDance, that's a associated with China and the Chinese Communist Party. We wanted to understand what are they doing with the personal information of Americans who are using this app. There's over a billion users. There's a lot of opacity on how their systems are actually run and operated from a tech software application side. But then on the consumer facing side, how are they using the personal information that is, Scott, as you probably know, so brilliantly been used that information to create one of the most potent effective algorithms of any social media company. And so the discussions that transpired, you had TikTok executives saying, well, we're not transferring any of this personal information overseas, none of us, none of it's in data centers or databases based out of China. And so the retort legislatively was great. If that's true, if TikTok is dissociated with the Chinese Communist Party, then divestiture is not necessary. Or this ban, as we're talking about, rather is not necessary if they are in fact divested from the ccp. And of course, as we saw as time went on, TikTok responded with one of the, quite frankly, largest legislative engagement campaigns we've seen in the tech policy world, with kids being targeted to contact their lawmakers, saying we need to get rid of this divestiture bill that they coined a ban, because it turns out the information they're collecting on Americans, they very well is being used by China and potentially the Chinese Communist Party. So this whole saga that's really unfolded here has come down to the sovereignty of Americans personal information. And so I choose not to call it a ban because I don't want to use the CCP talking points here. We're asking if you divest from the very country you say you're divested from, you can continue to do business as usual. We want transparency, just as we required of other major tech companies. How are you using that personal information? Is it being sold to the highest bidder? And so on and so forth. So that was kind of the crux of my piece that I focused on. It must have been almost a year ago now.

[B]

So just to be clear, TikTok has the opportunity here to divest from Chinese ownership. If they were to do so, would there be any specific unique risks that remain? Or is this quite simply a potential off ramp that is easy for. Well, theoretically easy, yeah.

[A]

I mean, theoretically, again, to take the words of the executives at TikTok, based on what they claim their operation consists of, it's very easy. I would add on and say there's kind of multiple components to this onion that is TikTok, which is the cybersecurity component, which this divestiture bill, that's what it's solely focused on. In fact, I think this kind of got lost in translation. This bill was not targeting TikTok as a ban, simply saying if there are countries that are labeled as hostile foreign adversaries that are operating a Trojan horse software application in America, if you are, if you refuse to disconnect with that foreign entity, then you cannot operate in the US of A. And so this could apply to any major tech titan that wasn't a TikTok. If you're operating out of Iran or North Korea and so on. So functionally, mechanically easy to do. Obviously, business is business, and finding a buyer, if you want to completely offload with it, that's their prerogative and their decision. But I would say you saw different investors clamoring to buy TikTok because again, of how incredible their algorithm is, I will give them credit. They have built a phenomenal machine. But TikTok refused to engage in these deals with these companies or with these bidders who are offering them way more than what their market share is likely worth, especially given this legislative beast hanging over their necks.

[B]

In this piece you describe TikTok as a Trojan horse of data collection. Now, people who use social media and many apps seemingly build that into the agreement that they're using an app. They understand that they might be collecting some personal information. Do we have concrete evidence that TikTok data, this data is being misused by the Chinese government in a more sinister way than perhaps other companies would use that personal information?

[A]

You know, that's kind of the whole conundrum here is the very opacity that they've built into their algorithm and in their company is we don't fully know how they're using this personal information. And so whereas in America, where we have data privacy laws that are governing companies like Meta or Snapchat or Google's YouTube, we have a sense of how that personal information is used. And you're right about the terms of service, but the difference in terms of those American based companies that I'm mentioning is, for example, I'm coming at you from the state of Texas. We have the Texas Data Privacy Security Act. I as a citizen resident of the state, have the ability to opt out of certain data processing and collection by by Instagram, let's say, or to request a portable form of that information they've used on me to fine tune my for you page or my feed. And so I as a consumer have that transparency. And Scott, I would say that in any free market transaction it requires transparency at the front end. So I know what I'm trading or giving up in exchange for that service from Instagram or Facebook. And since that isn't the case with TikTok, we can't be fully informed to know just exactly what is that trade off, how are they using that information and what kinds of personal identifiers do they have on me. And I'm a long standing advocate for a national data privacy law. And I think if this TikTok divestiture, despite the fact SCOTUS upheld it unanimously, if it doesn't go through for any reason, way, shape or form having comprehensive data privacy laws, and if we were able to crack into this black box of TikTok, I think this discussion would go from the theoretical cybersecurity threat to the immed immediate urgent concern that I'm presuming it likely is just on account of knowing what information they have in us and how they're using it. So the short answer is we don't know until we have that transparency.

[B]

In the piece you highlight the difference between the Chinese version of the app and TikTok in the U.S. do you think this is at least soft evidence of a deliberate strategy to treat Americans and American users differently than their own users in China?

[A]

Oh, 100%. And I was, I was recounting with a coworker yesterday, you know, China's fought a war over opium once. I think this is the second iteration of it because you look at what ByteDance has done with their Chinese version of TikTok. It's as Tristan Harris, who's a long standing data privacy advocate, coined the spinach version. They're teaching young Chinese kids how to be thought leaders, how to be astronauts, how to be more studious in school, learning about different animals and species, things that are contributing presumably to more educational growth versus the American model, which is quite literally digital opium. How do we increase the engagement and addiction as fast as humanly possible to distract kids from meaningful development and engagement within society, culture and so on. And if, if your listeners are familiar, if they're not familiar rather with the Wall Street Journal did an incredible document and video showcasing 100 different accounts they created on TikTok in America to see how fast can they figure out, you know, what might this user be interested in? Further for you page. And within 35 to 40 minutes just by queuing up one of the bot accounts to be interested in depressive content, 85 to 90% of the content that's served to that child users, how they registered this bot account was depressive content in nature. And the conclusion for very knee jerk takeaway from this is in China the number one desired professional career for kids is to be an astronaut. In America it's to be an influencer because the culture of what TikTok is pushing in America is main character syndrome. How can I be the center of attention delegitimizing those meaningful relationships or development of faculties of mind that China knows they need need to have the competitive advantage long term. And so this is a brilliant strategy quite frankly to ensure that our kids aren't able to keep up with the same level of entrepreneurism and innovation that China knows is crucial to them dwarfing.

[B]

The U.S. so TikTok and supporters claim that there are some First Amendment concerns with the law. How would you respond to those who say hey, again, this is a transaction freely entered into and if people understand that this information will be taken by China, perhaps used in some way, does this rise to a level of not just a personal concern but a national security concern for America?

[A]

Yeah, I mean I think the simplest retort to this is that again The Supreme Court of the United States upheld this legislation unanimously. And they see it through the lens of national security, and they see it through the lens of really just consumer protection. And when we're looking at my organization, we look at tech policy generally through the lens of trade practices and whether something is a deceptive trade practice. So there's the SCOTUS ruling, which determines on grounds cybersecurity and national security. It is time that Americans take control over our personal information and not give it to this behemoth, the Chinese Communist Party. But then the second point is you look at some of the content that's being promoted and whether this is the TikTok blackout challenge, which is a challenge that encourages its users to choke themselves just to the point of suffocation and post it online. The virality of some of these challenges that are posted are one thing. It's how they're targeting kids with it that's another. And while SCOTUS doesn't fully address this component, that's something that we see as uniquely different about the algorithm of TikTok at my organization, which is engagement means eyeballs on screens and the more incendiary and bombastic content is going to result in longer engagement. And even if that means kids are hurting themselves in the process. And I think that's something that's been almost lost in this discussion when you have nine or ten year old kids who are calling their member of Congress when this bill is up saying, I will literally kill myself if this bill becomes law. Maybe it's time for us to not accept the status quo of kids being on their screens for 67% of their waking day. And rather looking at how are some of these tools that could be a product of the Chinese Communist Party pulling our kids away from development into the humans they need to be to be contributors to society and just generally happy.

[B]

You use the phrase uniquely different. I just want to drill down on that for a moment. What specifically explicitly makes TikTok ByteDance so different and why would it perhaps not apply in the future? Slippery slope argument for banning or restricting other apps that are owned by perhaps foreign entities or have some role of a foreign country and its ownership.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, to be clear, this legislation does state that if it's predominantly based in a foreign nation that is deemed an adversary, that it would cease operations in the US of A. So to your point, it could broaden out to other companies. And the question, when I say they're unique in that respect, there's the kids targeting, there's the promotion of harmful trends. There's their algorithm, which is, you know, at the core of some of these deceptive trade practices, but it really just is the Chinese Communist Party ownership at the end of the day. And I would say there's probably a way to craft, you know, the ship has sailed. There's probably a way to craft legislation that's even more precising. But if you're asking me is that dragnet worth this trade off here, where we're getting TikTok out of the hands of Americans for National Security, I think that's a justifiable trade off. Though I think there's plenty of nuanced discussion to be had about could there have been a more perfect legislative solution. I think the answer is almost always yes. And that's certainly the case in this instance too.

[B]

Millions of Americans do use TikTok. It is a very popular app. And that means if it does go away, there will be consequences. There's always trade offs. Right. And so as much as we might not like it, there are influencers who have built a career off of TikTok use. There are small businesses that use TikTok for promotional purposes and perhaps have built their brand through this app. What should we worry about? Or should we worry about the fallout and managing some of that if TikTok is eliminated from US use?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, national security is national security and I think that is the transcendent force behind this. And I think that's right. Now, to answer the direct comment or question, I mean, absolutely, there are going to be consequences for small business owners. And I'm less inclined to be, you know, woeful of some of the influencers and especially just looking. We're back to school and in Texas we passed a ban on personal devices in the classroom. And you're seeing Some of these 14, 15 year old TikTok influencers just melt down. And I honestly, my heart breaks for them because if that's their aspiration, that's their goal rather to be engaged in the classroom, to make meaningful, you know, formative relationships, to do well in sports. It's time for them to be away from that. And I'll say to the business side, you know, business owners are by their very nature adaptive and industrious and resourceful. And it's not like we're targeting specific small businesses since all would be in that cohort. I think we'd still see the, the marketplace of ideas went out finding different outlets that aren't CCP controlled. There's still plenty of avenues to get the word out there. And because again, that transcendent force of national security, it's a worthwhile, albeit short term painful trade off, long term benefit. And especially thinking about if they are using some of this information in deceptive ways in China, these small businesses shouldn't be giving this personal information out in the first place and that could be used against them in cyber attacks or heaven forbid, personal identity theft attacks. So it's a tough trade off to your point, but I think one I'd make eight days out of the week.

[B]

David Dunmoyer is associate vice president of campaigns at Texas Public Policy Foundation. You can find [e-mail] also find David on XD Dunmoyer David, thanks so much for joining us today on Future of Freedom.

[A]

Thank you so much, Scott. Appreciate it.

[B]

Now to hear another side of the argument about enforcing the law that could ban TikTok in America, we talk with Joe Lancaster, assistant editor at Reason, also over on XO R. Lancaster. Joe, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me talking today about the TikTok ban. And you've written a piece [e-mail] that says either repeal or enforce, but ideally repeal the TikTok ban. Now early on in the piece, you're very blunt about the merits of the law. You say the ban is a bad law. Let's start there. Why is the ban a bad law?

[C]

It is, by my, to my knowledge, the only time in American history that Congress singled out an individual company and said this company can no longer operate within our borders. You know, it's, it's not just saying that, you know, companies writ large can't do this or can't sell that. It is, it is saying, and to be fair, in the text of the piece, it does get about this by saying, you know, apps, platforms, websites can't operate in the United States if they're owned at least 20% by someone living, working or subject to the laws of a what it calls a foreign adversary country. But it's very clear what it's referring to. The the law as it originally passed in in Congress. The description, the summary of the law singles out TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance by name. So there's no preconceptions about what it's doing.

[B]

So the law is bad. Why why enforce it at all if that's the case? Why is non enforcement here more dangerous than enforcement?

[A]

Sure.

[C]

Yeah, I, I'll admit I was I feel like the, the rest of the piece is what the what the Brits might call I was being a Little bit cheeky with it, but, you know, people can reasonably disagree on the point of whether it's actually worse or not in this exact case. But I was getting, just getting to the point that it, it is much more dangerous to create the precedent that the President can simply ignore laws that he doesn't want to enforce. You know, because in this case, the, this law passed in either March or April of last year, and it was supposed to go into effect this past January. By that time, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle seem to have soured on it. You know, the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress were saying that, you know, the Biden administration was saying it had no intention of enforcing it. Democrats in Congress were talking, talking about passing a law to postpone it. And then by the time Donald Trump comes into office, he is saying ahead of time he has no intention of enforcing it either. And one of the first things he'll do when he gets into office is just issue an executive order saying that, well, we don't have to enforce it, we're just going to put off enforcing it. And that in particular, like I said, even though I think the law is a bad law, I feel like it's dangerous to create the precedent where we all just accept that a president on his own with an executive order can just decide that, well, because he doesn't like a law, then we're just not going to enforce it until a, until he sees fit, or perhaps forever. And, you know, it actually goes, in this case, it goes a little bit further than that because as we learned within the past few weeks, the law itself, it doesn't just apply to TikTok, it applies to any American company that provides them services. So Google or Apple hosting the app in the App Store, Oracle or Amazon or somebody else hosting the website on its. On its servers. The law says that after the deadline of January this past year, any of those companies that still provide services to TikTok can be fined up to $5,000 for each user. In the United States, TikTok has 170 million users. So at the high end, that's $850 billion. So for a few weeks after the law went into effect, TikTok still was not in the app stores. And we learned recently what kind of convinced them to reinstate the app in the app stores is when Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, sent letters to all these tech companies basically saying, look, we are absolving you of any culpability under this law, not only for, under this administration, but she produced from thin air. The right to, in her words, irrevocably relinquish any future right to, to prosecute these companies, even though the law itself has a statute of limitations of five years. So there is conceivably a case in which, whether under this administration or a future one, these companies would still be subject to penalty under this law. But the administration has simply said, well, we are, we, we are waving a magic wand or making a decree that you're, you're free to, you don't have to worry about that. We are, we are, we are removing the right of this or any future administration to prosecute you for this, which is another just completely baffling exercise of executive power.

[B]

Let me ask, I want to cite a particular point here in terms of. Do we not already have precedent set that presidents can do something like this? I go back to the implementation of Obamacare and the Affordable Care act, where President Obama in 2014 decided to delay the employer mandate past the midterm and into 2015, not enforcing that aspect of the law. Congress, in fact, at that time said, you can't do that without us, and they were ignored. Do we not already have a precedent? Is this instance different than that instance?

[C]

I would say we have some. The presidents absolutely have a right to prioritize enforcement in certain cases. So just as an example, and this is not the exact same thing, but it's a similar concept. Just if you watch old episodes of Law and Order, for example, you would always have, or you would often have, where the detectives would get a hint or get a clue that a drug dealer or a sex worker may have some information about this particular case. And so they'll go down and they'll talk to them, and the person will say, I'm not talking to you. You'll, you know, arrest me. And then the homicide detectives would tell them, listen, we don't care about what you're doing. We're trying to solve a murder. And if you think about it, that is selective enforcement. But it is recognizing that any government office, any office, anywhere, has finite resources. So it makes perfect sense to prioritize enforcement of certain things over others. You know, this could take the place in that case of certain crimes to investigate or to investigate with what resources. It could take the form of immigration enforcement. You know, when the Obama administration decided it was no longer going to deport the children who had been brought here at very young ages, when it came to be called the dreamers, that's within an administration's right to do that. Where it got Controversial in that case was when again, the Obama administration decided to make it an official program immediately out of nowhere. But certainly administrations have the right to prioritize enforcement in certain cases. This is a bit of a different animal in a lot of ways. Now, I'm not a, I'm not an attorney, so I can't speak to, you know, the specific Obamacare provision versus versus this one. But it is, it's, it's a different thing altogether to say that you're just, you're going to ignore a law as passed by Congress and for that matter, much as I may disagree with the decision upheld by the Supreme Court to simply say that that law, we don't have to enforce it at all, as opposed to, you know, presidents can, they can drag their feet on enforcing laws. They can, you know, some cases, presidents have said they're no longer going to defend a law if it is being challenged in court. Those are, I think those are grayer areas where obviously, again, the president has some discretion, but they are different from simply taking a law that has been passed and adjudicated and upheld and just dispensing with it altogether.

[B]

You note in this piece over reason, Congress hasn't moved to repeal the law. Clearly they also haven't necessarily objected to the President ignoring it or moved to do anything about it. What responsibility does Congress have in this situation?

[C]

I mean, I think repealing it would be the better, better option because you're right, they, they have made no efforts to that, they have made to no complaints about the fact that the law has gone unenforced. And in fact, I wrote something else back in January. A number of Congress members who voted for the law were still active on TikTok in the days leading up to the, the deadline, you know, and so, and a lot of these people at the time were very vocally saying, listen, this is not a ban. This is forcing a, an app to sell itself, which is, you know, it's arguable whether or not that's that much better. But the fact remains that if that did not happen, it would have been a case where it would have been a ban. And that's exactly what ended up happening, is that a deal did not present itself in the nine months that were allowed and so it became a ban. But, you know, so clearly Congress largely has no interest in actually enforcing this law. Enforcing this law. So then, yeah, it should go to the steps of actually repealing it. I think that would be the easiest thing since they seem to largely be in agreement on that point.

[B]

There Is a quote in the piece that describes this as a major rule of law crisis. If it is the case, what would be perhaps the longer term consequences? If, if the public shrugs this off, Congress continues to shrug this off. Is this confined to a simple conflict about TikTok or could we have more ramifications down the road?

[C]

I absolutely feel like this could be just the first step in a multi step process wherein the President does decide that, well, he has the ability to apply this same logic to any number of laws that he doesn't agree with because the, the letters that Attorney General Bondi sent to all these different tech companies, Google, Apple, Oracle, Amazon, several others, doesn't really go into all that much detail about why the administration feels it has this authority other than just to say, well the Constitution gives the President the authority to defend national security and this law hamstrings his ability to protect US national security, so therefore he feels he doesn't have to enforce it. And that is just such a thin reed to hang any sort of theory of executive power on. And if it goes unchallenged and it really just feels like there's no limitation of what else the President could ignore if he feels like it impedes upon some other right, he has the. Honestly, the President does have plenty of limitations on his power. It's key to the our whole constitutional system of checks and balances. So if we allow this to stand where, well, a law impedes his ability to do something else so he can ignore it, theoretically, there's no limit to what he could simply decide he doesn't have to abide by because it gets in the way of something else he wants to do.

[B]

Do you think there is a limit to Congress's willingness to look the other way in the enforcement of this law?

[C]

That's a good question. I feel like the story of Congress, all Congresses over the past, I don't know, 75, 100 years has been a gradual relinquishing of its powers to the executive in a lot of ways. For whatever reason, the members of Congress apparently feel it that that power should be entrusted to a single person instead. And so, you know, you have presidents deploying troops or launching bombing campaigns on foreign countries without Congress's direct input. You have Congress relinquishing the power to enact tariffs to the President with little more than just using, using the word emergency the same way that in the TikTok case he can just use the phrase national security and apparently get over that. I would, I would love to believe that there is, there is an appetite for Congress to reclaim its constitutionally given powers and authorities. I I do think there is a pretty low ceiling on that, though, just historically. You know, there are certainly people within Congress who make a fuss now and again. There are senators who have tried to reclaim the Congress's powers over tariffs. So far has not really made much much of an impact or hasn't gotten a lot of traction. So I, as much as I would love it, I do not find a lot of optimism for for that prospect.

[B]

Joe Lancaster is assistant editor at Reason. You can find his [e-mail], also over on XO R Lancaster. Joe, thanks so much for joining us here on Future of Freedom.

[C]

I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[B]

We thank both of our guests for joining us today. Joe Lancaster, assistant editor at reason, [e-mail] and David Dunmoyer, associate vice president of Campaigns at Texas Public Policy foundation. More@texas policy.com to find additional episodes of Future of Freedom, go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your audio. Thank you for listening to Future of Freedom, a production of Franklin News Foundation.