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Supreme Court Says TikTok Can Be Banned In U.S.; Confirmation Hearing For Kristi Noem As Homeland Security Secretary. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired January 17, 2025 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[11:00:45]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning to you. You are live in the CNN Newsroom on this very busy Friday. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington.

And we begin with major breaking news. The Supreme Court just ruled that a controversial ban on TikTok may take effect on Sunday. The ruling putting the spotlight on President-elect Donald Trump. And I just spoke to him on the phone. It was a brief conversation. And this was his first reaction. I was actually telling him about how the Supreme Court ruled and he told me, quote, in response, it ultimately goes up to me. So you're going to see what I'm going to do. Congress has given me the decision, so I'll be making the decision.

So we're going to talk to our panel about -- about that because it's not so simple, although of course he will have some options available to him. So before we get to that, I want to go straight to Paula to break down this ruling for us. Paula?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Easily the biggest decision out of the court so far this term. And here the justices allowing this ban on the popular app TikTok to go forward amid bipartisan concerns about the national security risk posed by this app. Specifically, the justices were looking at a law passed last April by Congress with broad bipartisan support that said the app would be banned unless it was sold from its parent company, ByteDance, because the concern is that ByteDance has obligations and allegiances to the Chinese government.

And the specific national concern -- security concern is that this app is collecting enormous amounts of data on Americans and that that data could be used or manipulated in a crisis. Now, in its decision, the court said that even TikTok, quote, did not dispute that the government has an important and well-grounded interest in pre China from collecting the personal data of tens of millions of U.S. TikTok users, nor could they. The platform collects extensive personal information from and about its users.

Now Justice Gorsuch wrote, quote, speaking with and in favor of a foreign adversary is one thing. Allowing a foreign adversary to spy on Americans is another. Now, TikTok had argued that this ban is a violation of the First Amendment. As we know, nearly 200 million Americans use this app to express themselves, everything from the news to cat videos to the latest dance craze.

But the justices appeared skeptical of that argument. And in their decision today, they said, look, this is very specific. We're talking about an app that collects an enormous amount of data for a foreign adversary. So they said that even though First Amendment protections are usually given enormous deference, here they're issuing this narrow ruling. So legally, what could happen next, well, it kind of falls to President-elect Trump if he is able to show that there are serious good faith negotiations underway to sell TikTok.

This ban could be paused. But the Supreme Court today also could have paused this and given him more time to engage in those negotiations, and the court chose not to do that. Pamela?

BROWN: Yes, that's certainly notable. I want to bring Joan in because it's interesting. You know, Donald Trump was once spearheading the effort to ban TikTok, and then he's had this reversal. He wants to save it, right? The justices actually noted that he once tried to ban it. They did, right?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Right at the top of the opinion in a couple different instances, the justices referred to the fact that in August of 2020, Donald Trump had actually issued an executive order against TikTok. And it also notes -- noted that he had said he had expressed concerns for the vast swathes of information that TikTok collects on American users. And that goes to the Justice's grounds.

Just to remind everyone what the court -- the federal government had argued here. Two grounds, they argued two grounds. One is all the data that's collected, the ama -- amassing of data from, you know, 170 million users. But then they also argued that TikTok not only had that data to use for blackmail or espionage, but also had co -- would -- would be in a position to covertly manipulate messages, you know, different kinds of propaganda.

The justice has actually set aside the second re -- reasoning. They decided, we're not going to -- we're not going to look at that one, because it was enough for them to find that the threat to national security was in the data collection. And, you know, we kind of saw this coming because during oral arguments, several of the justices talked about information that could be collected now on young people who down the road, 10, 15 years from now, come into more important positions and then could be vulnerable to what had been collected on them.

[11:05:10]

And just the risk of not just today, that data collection, but down the road, what Beijing could potentially do to it. And that was the crux of their reasoning today, Pam.

BROWN: And so now you have Donald Trump, who told me on the phone this morning that, look, the decision is ultimately up to me. Congress has given me the decision to do it. Now, we know the law allows this 90- day extension if there are actual, real, tangible negotiations happening. But ByteDance has said it doesn't want to sell TikTok. And so there's this looming question of what's going to happen Sunday when this ban takes place and between that time and when Donald Trump takes office, Monday, officially. And what options are available to him.

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, I'm curious what he's being advised as far as how much discretion he has. I don't think this law, as it was passed and as President Biden signed it, really gives the President-elect, future President Trump, a whole lot of flexibility in terms of being able to put the brakes on it once it goes into effect. There's a couple different options he has available.

One, he could quickly see if he can put together a buyer group, and that is again, if ByteDance and TikTok are willing to sell it, they have the option to just shut down their own service. They don't actually have to be bought, even if a buying group was put together. The other potential option that President-elect Trump might be thinking through with his team is whether or not he issues an executive order that directs the Attorney General not to enforce the law, in other words, not to conduct the investigations that the act calls for.

But the law actually applies to the companies that provide access to the app. So it's the companies that -- that provide the app stores that people download it from. And that puts those companies, if he were to say, look, this law is in place, but I'm just not going to enforce it, go ahead, companies, and still go ahead and provide access to it. That puts the companies in a really, really difficult place because they're in a position then of potentially not complying with the law and risking huge fines.

BROWN: Especially for Sunday when he's not officially president, right?

CORDERO: Well, he can't do anything before Sunday.

BROWN: Right.

CORDERO: We only have one president at a time.

BROWN: Exactly. And they've made clear, the Biden White House has made clear, look, it's the end of our term.

CORDERO: They're going to let it go. So the question would be, once President Trump steps into office, what does he do then? And it's not so simple. The law doesn't give him a whole lot of flexibility.

BROWN: I want to go to Alayna Treene. Alayna, when I spoke to President-elect Trump this morning, he talked about his call with President Xi of China. And, you know, he said it was a great call. And they talked about TikTok and they talked about several other issues. But that is notable because really the center of concern here that is also reflected in the Supreme Court opinion is about China, you know, taking Americans data and spying on Americans. So you have to wonder what really went on in that conversation. ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: No, exactly. And I'd also keep in mind as well that there's many Republicans in Congress who voted for this bill. I mean, it was a bipartisan bill that Congress approved last year to -- to ban TikTok by January 19th. And there's many Republicans who think that this ban needs to move forward despite what Donald Trump is saying.

Look, I'd also remind you that Donald Trump himself, back in 2020, before he departed office for his first term, wanted a ban on TikTok. It's actually something that the Supreme Court cited in its decision today that he felt that there were national security concerns about a Chinese owned company owning TikTok. Of course, now we are seeing really the stunning reversal from him.

A lot of this is, and we've heard this from Donald Trump directly, in his own words, he believes that he's warm to TikTok because so many of users in this country. You know, there's tens of millions of Americans who use TikTok on a daily basis. Some of them voted for him because they saw a lot of his campaign through the app and by using the app.

Now, we also know a couple of things. Not only did he talk to Xi Jinping this morning, but he has been in regular contact as well with TikTok CEO, Shou Chew. He's talked to him on the phone. We also know he met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month. And Chew is going to be at the inauguration on Monday.

We also know that Xi Jinping is -- is sending one of their top officials from the Chinese Communist Party to the inauguration as well, something they are doing for the first time. All to say this relationship, Donald Trump's relationship with the CEO of TikTok but also Xi Jinping is definitely one of those complicating matters in all of this. Even though Donald Trump is, you know, really said that he wants to take a hard line policy on China.

He also has Marco Rubio, if he is confirmed to be his secretary of state, someone who was very much a hawk on China. He's actually sanctioned by Beijing. All of this is weighing into this decision. But I think the key thing is what Donald Trump is going to do once he is in office. And we do know that he is weighing an executive order to potentially push pause on this ban to see if they can find some sort of agreement with TikTok.

[11:10:11]

You know, I'm told in a short amount of time, maybe 60 to 90 days, to put pause on this so they can try to find some sort of negotiation. So all of this is under consideration. But again, we will not know until Donald Trump officially makes that move once he is in office. Pamela?

BROWN: Yes. No clear cut answers right now. Alayna, thank you so much. Let's go to Marc Stewart Steward and Beijing to get reaction there. Marc?

MARC STEWART, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pam, I'll tell you what's interesting. As you mentioned, President-elect Trump told you that TikTok was part of that conversation with Xi Jinping. It's well after midnight. And we have been going through government readouts about that conversation and there is absolutely no mention of TikTok from the Chinese side as part of that discussion.

In fact, if anything, a lot of diplomatic speak talking about a new starting point between the United States and China. As you mentioned, the President-elect says he will try to take charge. He will -- he will try to put a deal together. But the China component is really important because China is not going to do anything that makes it appear as if it's taking orders from the United States. Hence this ultimatum, either sell or -- or leave.

China has got to feel very comfortable with this deal. And in the past has used some very pointed language about how all of this has unfolded, referring to the United States as acting like a bully. So that's going to be a very interesting component.

Also, just for some additional context, it's interesting that this whole notion of free speech has been brought up in this debate because here in China, American apps such as Instagram, such as Facebook, YouTube, Google, they cannot be accessed by the average Chinese citizen. They are blocked by this electronic firewall. Now, as an American can access them on my phone because I have an American phone. But it's just one of many contrasts in this bigger debate that we are seeing unfold, Pam, between the United States and China.

BROWN: All right, Marc, thanks for that. And we're just getting some reaction in from members of Congress. Republican Senator Josh Hawley weighed in. He actually said that he agreed that -- that the court ruled correctly, but predicts that somebody will buy it. Elie Honig, I want to go to you. You know, in his response, which is interesting because as we know, Josh Hawley is a Trump ally. He is saying this was the correct ruling, though. But he said it's up to Beijing to sell this. If that doesn't happen, because we know that ByteDance says it -- it doesn't want to sell right now, then what are the options available?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So when Donald Trump told you, Pam, shortly ago that Congress gives him the final say, that's partially correct, but there are some important limitations on that. So Congress did write into the law that this sort of escape hatch where if the president, whoever is president at that moment, officially certifies that there have been tangible conversations, negotiations going on for a sale of TikTok to a U.S. based owner that can put on this 90-day break, this 90-day pause.

But the law is pretty specific about what you need. It says you can't just have sort of vague conversations floating out there in the world. There has to be a legally binding agreement in place. We are certainly nowhere near that. But let me give you an important distinction here between the law as written and the law as applied.

If Donald Trump gets in office three days from now and says, I hereby find that there are conversations other way and that's good enough under the law, and therefore it's paused for 90 days, who's realistically going to challenge that? TikTok sure as heck is not going to challenge that. The administration which defended this ban is sure as heck not going to challenge that. It's going to be Trump's administration. I'm not sure anyone else would even have legal standing to challenge that.

And even if someone did challenge it would probably take, well, more than the 90 days of the break. So it'll be interesting to see to what extent does Donald Trump care about the fine nuances of the law or to what extent is he really just looking at, let's just get this thing on pause and let's deal with the political fallout later.

BROWN: Yes, we'll have to wait and see. Brian Stelter, to bring you in on this. What will actually happen to the TikTok app on Sunday? I mean, there's 170 million users in the U.S. Will they still be able to buy it on the App Store and use the app?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: It increasingly seems that on Sunday nothing will change because Apple and Google won't be under pressure to remove it from the App Store because the Biden administration says they're not going to enforce the law on that first day. Then we get to Monday, it's Inauguration Day. What happens on Tuesday and Wednesday, that is up in the air. But because this law is really about telling what Apple and Google and others can do with their app stores, this is something that is going to be very much in limbo.

The app will not disappear overnight unless its owner, ByteDance, wants it to disappear, right? ByteDance right now could put up a pop up message saying, sorry, your TikTok is gone. Blame the U.S. politicians. They could do that, but they're not doing that. It's a big business for them. They make a ton of money from advertising through TikTok. And of course there have allegations they use TikTok for political purposes as well.

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And I think it's so interesting, Pam, that this moment, this TikTok controversy is a political moment for so many young people. They're waking up, they're learning about politics for the first time. They're wondering who to blame if the app goes away. But conversely, as you've mentioned, there are Republican politicians coming forward and praising the Supreme Court this morning. Josh Hawley, you mentioned Tom Cotton as well. Even former Vice President Mike Pence, he came out just now praising the ruling, saying this law is vital for national security.

But as we know, Pence is not going to be front and center next Monday. It's going to be the TikTok CEO who's going to be hanging out with Trump at the inauguration.

BROWN: Fair Point. Brian Stelter, thank you. And thank you to everyone for giving all of your perspective analysis on this. A big decision from the Supreme Court upholding that ban on TikTok unless it's sold.

Right now on Capitol Hill, Trump's nominees to fill his cabinet continue to get grilled by some senators. Former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is being considered for the Department of Homeland Security. A live look ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:20:52]

BROWN: Right now on Capitol Hill, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem's Senate confirmation is underway as she looks to the next head of the Department of Homeland Security. The hearing comes just days ahead of President-elect Trump's return to the White House. And the expected start of his controversial immigration policies, which he signaled he'd implement on day one.

CNN White House correspondent Priscilla Alvarez is with us now. So you have this new reporting about what we can actually expect on day one with Trump's immigration agenda.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: And that is a slate of executive action. So some of this might sound familiar to viewers. That includes, for example, trying to invoke the national emergency declaration to shore up more resources along the U.S. Southern border. It also includes more interior enforcement. So think ICE sweeps in major metropolitan areas that have been grappling with an influx of migrants over recent years, Denver, Chicago, ones, too, that the incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has sparred with publicly.

We're also talking here about legal immigration. So the travel ban, an iteration of that is expected come -- come through an executive action, though I am told by sources that they are still sorting who exactly it is going to apply to. And they also want to and are still considering the ending of birthright citizenship, of course, that is enshrined in the Constitution. But they want to tee up a legal fight on this very matter, one that the president elect has talked about often.

Now we're watching here the confirmation hearing. Kristi Noem, of course, was tapped by the President-elect to serve as the Department of Homeland Security secretary. She has been fielding questions about the Trump immigration agenda over the course of this now two-hour hearing. She has said that the border is a, quote, war zone. That's something that she has said before when describing the situation along the U.S. Southern border. Noting here, though, that the border numbers are very low right now, lower than when Trump left office, Remain in Mexico.

That is going -- that is a policy that the Trump administration did the first time around and that was sending migrants back to Mexico while they awaited their immigration court hearings in the United States. It was unprecedented. Well, they want to bring it back. And she said during this hearing when she was asked that she has been talking extensively with Trump on this very policy.

But she also was asked about her dynamic with Tom Homan. This is going to be different than the first administration because now he's going to have a border czar. He didn't have that when -- during his first term. So Tom Homan, she said, has a direct line to the President. And he has talked publicly about this. And what I have been told by sources is the one that is really at the helm when it comes to this mass deportation pledge.

Well, that's a point of concern for some of these lawmakers who have oversight of the Department of Homeland Security because they wonder what the -- where exactly she falls in that. And she said that she was going to work very closely with Tom Homan. But all of this to show that, yes, the immigration, the signature issue for the President- elect is going to be something that they work on day one, hours after he's sworn in, if not sooner. And certainly the -- the Kristi Noem, should she be confirmed, would be someone who'd be at the helm of that.

BROWN: And let's listen in to this confirmation hearing for Kristi Noem to hear what she has to say.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): When the numbers got bad, that seemed to disappear, and then we couldn't even get the data anymore. So I look forward to actually finding ways to be able to have everybody has the ability to be able to see some of this data as well on it. There's a reason that the DHS secretary is the very first week of nominations. This is a really important role and it is a nonpartisan role. It is a national security role.

And we're grateful that you stepped into this. But it is important that we actually get you on the task to be able to make sure that it's out there. You mentioned earlier in your testimony that we do have a morale problem at DHS right now. And I think a lot of that is because people that signed up to be federal law enforcement to be able to protect the United States of America have felt like they've been sidelined.

And they've not been able to do their job that they really signed up for. And what I'm hearing from you is you're going to allow them to do their job, again. What has been historically true for a long time, that federal law enforcement is there to actually help protect the country and the citizens in those communities that you're going to allow them to do that. And that's helpful. So I have two quick things that I want to be able to mention on this.

[11:25:04]

One is right now, just in the structure of this, and we talk about this a different time, but CBP facilities that are along the border are really run by a different entity called GSA, and they're not allowed to be able to do updates on their facilities or to design their facilities. Somebody who lives 3,000 miles away and who doesn't actually do border patrol work, they actually design and oversee their facilities. That's a problem that we've got to be able to fix.

So we've worked to be able to give more flexibility to CBP that when they have difficulty and challenges there, they have the ability to be able to make those changes. But I'm not going to ask you to make a commitment to this because this is just one of those detailed areas. But will you commit in the future to working with us that this Committee and you can work together to be able to figure out how the folks that are on the field can actually make decisions about the facilities they work in? GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): Yes, Senator, I commit to working with you on that issue.

LANKFORD: It's terrific. And then I had a constituent in Oklahoma that is a hunter like you are, like I am.

NOEM: Yes.

LANKFORD: He had a bag that he had some additional rounds that were in his bag that were left over from a hunting trip months before. He packed his bag, went on a vacation trip overseas, went through security with his bag. When he got overseas and then left and came back, they scanned his bag and said, you have bullets, you have rounds in your bag. And yes, I think five that were in his bag that he didn't even remember were left over in an outside pocket from a hunting trip before.

Well, they promptly put him in jail and held him there and detained him there. Now, we worked through all the process to be able to get him back. My question is that same bag went through TSA security in my state before it went security -- through security overseas. And so one of the questions that I've asked is why was -- why were those rounds picked up there and not here?

Now, we don't have the full answer to that yet, but that's just one of those TSA questions that we need to have. Americans right now are on planes all over the country, and they count on a certain level of security when they go through that process. So in the days ahead, will you work with me to be able to identify what are the challenges that we still face.

BROWN: -- Homeland Security secretary, we have a guest here, Ken Cuccinelli, who was the acting deputy Homeland Security secretary in the first Trump administration and testified yesterday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Immigration Policy. Ken, thank you so much for being here. So President-elect Trump, as we know --

KEN CUCCINELLI, ACTING DEPUTY DHS SECRETARY IN FIRST TRUMP ADMIN.: Sure.

BROWN: -- campaigned on the promise of launching the largest deportation program of criminal -- criminals in the history of America on day one of his presidency. So what does this actually look like now that he's just a few days from taking office?

CUCCINELLI: Right. Just this coming Monday. So, well, as he said, he'll launch it on day one. And I think what you'll see is among those executive orders that Priscilla was talking about will include at least one, maybe more, directed to ramping up the deportation effort so that they're targeting numerical goals in the millions, far beyond what any recent president has done. Really, it would -- you'd have to go all the way back to Eisenhower to find anything of similar scale.

I think that's what they have in mind. That's what they've projected. There's every reason to think this president is serious about it. And you hear Governor Noem rather kind of calmly and systematically talk about, yes, we're going to implement the President's agenda. This is a priority area. And that means it's going to get extra attention from the President and extra push and political capital, and she's going to be at the operational head of that.

There was some back and forth with Senator Kim about her interacting with Tom Homan, the border czar. Of course, Joe Biden theoretically had a border czar, but she didn't do anything. It's part of why she lost the race for president. And while one can understand --

BROWN: She was -- she was responsible for the -- the American countries, DHS, the head of DHS was responsible for the border.

CUCCINELLI: No, she wasn't. No, no, no.

BROWN: But I know that was a big talking point.

CUCCINELLI: It's whitewash, what they were doing. President Biden made --

BROWN: I'm not whitewash.

CUCCINELLI: -- he borders czar to cover everything. And she did almost nothing and hardly ever even went to the border. You're going to see a complete, it's going to be from yang to yang in the Trump administration relative to what we saw in the Biden administration. And Kristi Noem will be on point for operationalizing these promises. They are big promises, but they're achievable.

BROWN: So there's many parts of this, many layers, right? It -- it costs money to deport someone, right? I mean, in 2016, the estimate was around 11,000, not including transport. You have the economic part of this, you know, the potential inflation. You have the potential loss of revenue because, you know, those who are here illegally also pay taxes in the billions, right? How do you account for all of that?

[11:30:02]

CUCCINELLI: Well, they cost a whole lot more than they pay in. And I think that's pretty well established by a lot of different entities.