January 13, 2025
So – this happened on the house floor this morning. Watch the next 48 seconds.
So what does this mean?
Well first – we are still waiting on the ruling from the Supreme Court. They will ultimately decide whether the law that bans TikTok is constitutional. But what Representative Ro Khana of California was asking for this morning on the House floor is for either President Biden or President elect Trump to exercise the power given to the president in the law to put a pause on the ban. Whether President Biden or President-elect Trump will listen to him and actually issue the pause is anyone’s guess. Perhaps if you put pressure on your lawmaker to put pressure on Biden and Trump – maybe one of them will actually do it.
But before you put pressure on your representative or senator you should know how they voted on the TikTok ban. Chances are your House representative voted yes — because most of them voted yes. But there are some that voted no and then when the ban bill got to the senate things got a little trickier.
You have to understand of the 435 members of the United States House of Representatives, 352 voted yes. In the United States Senate — 79 of 100 voted yes to ban TikTok. That’s a lot. We don’t see that kind of overwhelming support very often. And yes – it was both Democrats and Republicans. So don’t believe that b-s on the internet oh it was Republicans fault – oh it was Democrats fault. No it was both. It started with Trump during his first term, he tried to ban TikTok multiple times and then the effort continued and passed under Biden. Those are the facts.
Now – before you go blaming anyone you need to understand what really happened. In the house of representatives the Protecting Americans for Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act which is the law that forces TikTok to either divest or be banned was a stand alone bill. It passed on March 13 2024.
The final vote was 352 to 65 and one member voted present.
197 Republicans voted yes and 155 Democrats voted yes.
14 members did not vote – seven were Democrats and seven were Republicans.
But here’s where things got tricky. By early April the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was not getting any traction in the Senate. Senators did not really want to touch it even after the House passed it. So – House Speaker Mike Johnson tried again – using a method that House Speakers and Senate Majority leaders have used forever. Speaker Johnson created a bundle package. He wrapped the TikTok ban bill into —a—five bill monster bill that included $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific and included some sanctions for China, Iran and Russia. So now – that monster bill had a little something for everyone. It passed the house again – and this time now that it included all those other things – all of a sudden, the Senate was like ok – we need to get this monster bill up for a vote. In the end on April 23 of 2024 the Senate passed it. The final vote was 79 to 18 with three members not voting.
Now – I’m not saying bundling bills together is a good way to do business but it’s been used for decades because generally it’s the only way things seem to get done. Again, not defending anyone but sometimes lawmakers vote yes on these big packages not because they like everything but because the part they like is really important to them even if there’s other stuff they hate.
Off the top of my head, I can tell you that Senator Rand Paul – a Republican from Kentucky did not cast a vote on this bill. And Senator Ed Markey a Democrat from Massachusetts voted yes on this bill. But both of them have been vocal advocates to stop the TikTok ban. In fact the two of them plus Representative Khanna who you heard from at the beginning of this video filed a brief with the Supreme Court asking them to save TikTok.
So – once you look at those lists I’m going to email you – make sure you talk to your lawmaker who represents you or your state and tell him or her how you feel about the TikTok ban and whether you think he or she should put pressure on Trump or Biden to issue that presidential pause.
How your House member voted here.
How your Senate member voted here.
