Tonight on all in. We are looking at tiktok, we may be Banning Tiktok. A tiktok flipflop for the ages. The thing i dont like is without tiktok youre going to make facebook bigger. Tonight, the tiktok vote, and a major flashing warning signs of a cashstrapped candidate. Steve bannon has suggested that you been paid off to switch your view. And, what three dismissed Felony Counts means for Defendant Trump in georgia and the rebirth of a decadesold campaign trail. People look around and they say, am i better off now than i was four years ago. The painful answer to the Trump Campaigns question. Some of the doctors say it will wash through, it will flow through, interesting terms and, very accurate. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. The House Of Representatives passed a bill today which could eventually lead to the banning of tiktok. The chinese social media app used by someone hundred 50 million americans. It was a somewhat surprising move from congress in this respect. This congress has not been known to pass a lot of bipartisan legislation. But thats what this was. It passed 35265. Basically, nothing passes by those margins. And it cut against traditional lines, it earned the support of both the far right speaker of the house mike johnson and his democrats democratic predecessor nancy pelosi, but was opposed. On the substance here, this is a thorny issue. Personally i find myself compelled by arguments on both sides, on the one hand, tiktok is an incredibly popular tool. A third of americans under 30 say they get their news regularly, from the app. And no one has any insight into its internal workings meaning, we dont know exactly whos getting to show what or for what reason, theres just no way to have any sense of how the algorithm actually works. A recent report warns that the app was full of chinese run propaganda accounts targeting political candidates, and the app attempted to magnify social divisions in the usa in the run up to the 2022 midterm elections. That gets to the heart of the problem. Theres not that much congress can do in a deep sense to regulate, or at least, tiktok is not accountable primarily to u. S. Regulators. Its primarily and fundamentally accountable to the Chinese Government. And the Chinese Government gets to tell it what to do. Its also true American SocialMedia Companies like facebook are sure as heck not allowed to operate in china. So just from a fair trade argument, you could say, the same standards should apply to chinese platforms here. On the other hand, every point that i just made about the opaque algorithm, the risk of misinformation and disinformation, seeking to exacerbate u. S. Divisions, all of that could be made about all of those american competitors, who are we kidding . But as you watch this legislation voted in today and the debate, and also highlights an Essential Question about how democracy functions, how legislation is made and fundamentally what we want our political representatives to do. Essentially we want them to evaluate arguments and assess costs and benefits, listen to different interests and constituents and make good faith judgments about what they think is best for the country and for the people they represent. What we dont want our representatives doing is what happens to much in washington, frankly, which is siding with the folks who write the biggest checks. And thats particularly true if the politician in question is in desperate financial straits and willing to do anything including selling off their own political platform to any person willing to pony up the most cash. Which brings us to the most prominent republican opponent of todays bill, one donald trump. The expresident we should note is a bit of a late convert to the pro tiktok cause, here he is as president , four years ago, threatening to ban the app out right. We are looking at tiktok, we may be Banning Tiktok, we may be doing some other things, there are a couple of options but a lot of things are happening so we will see what happens but we are looking at a lot of alternatives with respect to tiktok. He tried to go through with the band but it was thrown out by the courts but here he is, two days ago, in the runup to this vote, two days ago, on cnbc announcing opposing a band. Frankly there are a lot of people on tiktok that love it, a lot of young kids on tiktok who will go crazy without it. There are a lot of users you know, theres a lot of good and a lot of bad with tiktok but, the thing i dont like is that without tiktok, you are going to make facebook bigger and i consider facebook to be an enemy of the people. Right, you may remember facebook fan him, trump has a vendetta against mark zuckerberg. It wasnt like he was sitting there like lets look at the pros and cons, someone get this all together me, no, get this, it was two weeks ago, when this vote was scheduled, everybody knew it was going to happen that a republican make a donor, that guy named jeff yes, made the pilgrimage down to mara lago to kiss trumps rang and it was notable because he has previously been something of a trump skeptic, its also notable because Yass Cofounded A Trading Firm that owns 15 of tiktoks company and has a personal stake in the Company Worth tens of billions of dollars. He was an enormous republican donor, he has a lot riding on this decision, okay . You dont have to be a genius to put two and two together, yass visits, trump announces that he opposes the van in fact even steve bannon figured it out. Taking to a fringe rightwing social from fisher an article about the flipflop with the caption of yass. And thanks to mcconnell and the John Roberts Supreme Court we effectively have no real actual meaningful Campaign Finance regulations left in the country which means someone like yass who has billions of dollars on the line, can write a billion dollar check to Donald Trumps super pac if he is so inclined and might get a good return on the investment social, is no surprise that the expresident left the meeting with a newfound appreciation for tiktok. And heres the thing ladies and gentlemen, this is not a one off. Im telling you right now, this is the way policy is going to get formed in this campaign and in a possible trump term especially when the man is in acute financial distress, and does not have the liquidity to pony up the 600 million he owes in legal penalties. Hes also way behind in fundraising partly because he and his operation have already cannibalized huge amounts of small dollar donations already, in order to pay off tens of millions of dollars in legal fees, legal fees that arent going anywhere and are probably going to get worse. A core part of the deal back in 2016 was this like, that his personal wealth im a big billionaire, would allow him to selffunded his campaign and make them immune to outside influence. Hillary Clintons Campaign is funded by wall street and hedge fund managers. My campaign is powered by my money. Im selffunded, im not controlled by all these people that control ted cruz, hillary, crooked, crooked, crooked hillary. I have tens and tens of millions of dollars, nobody else does. I put my own money into this. Okay, that was always a lie, he raised huge sums of money from donors in that campaign. But right now, he is more beholden to donors and the donor class than ever before. He owes hundreds of millions of dollars. The small donations that may have been just cranking, right, they are showing signs of running dry, theres almost only so many 10 donations you can get out of people and so, name your price, billionaires, Donald Trumps political visions are for sale. Hes flipflopping with cutting things like medicare and social security. Again, it is what extremely wealthy donors want to see. The expresident is strapped for cash on the republican platform and americas governing agenda perhaps, is up for auction to the highest bidder. Joining me as one of the co authors of this bill which could then tiktok, he serves on the Intelligence Committee and the China Special committee, congressman, i guess i would say first, its striking that given Donald Trumps opposition to the border bill, and to ukraine funding, essentially acting as a veto, that him coming out to oppose this bill did nothing, it didnt seem to affect him in any way today. Yeah, you are correct, i think look, people saw it as a flipflop, they knew as i was talking to my republican colleagues on the other side, they saw this as a transaction that he had engaged in and it doesnt affect the way that they would end up floating. All that being said, i think, for a certain period of time, the folks on the other side who are whipping the votes were monitoring closely to see what would happen but they didnt see an appreciable change in peoples position. I want to give you arguments i heard against this bill, or concerns that people have. The first is prioritization, i mean, i talk to people in the last few days were like really, Banning Tiktok . It seems like theres a lot the country needs right now. We havent passed the ukraine funding bill, there are enormous priorities in our country all along like, its a little weird that this is so pressing, weve got to ban tiktok, what do you say to that . First of all, you are right, we have to do the special supplemental aid to ukraine for instance, and we need to do it, we should have done it months ago, and i think at this point, i dont control what comes before the house but i know that this is also important, this particular bill. Its not a ban on tiktok but it is a forced divestiture of tiktok by bytedance, and bytedance as you know, is basically controlled by the Chinese Communist party, the editor and chief of bytedance is the secretary of the ccp cell embedded at the highest echelons of the company and hes been tasked with making sure that tiktok and all products adhere to correct political direction. So what we are asking and as part of this bill, requiring, is to reduce the ownership to beneath 20 which is the threshold by the way, for Foreign Ownership in any for instance Broadcast Outlet in the United States, and making sure that we delink the Chinese Communist partys control of tiktok from its operation. My understanding is that everyone knows that the ccp will not allow for that so the result will be tiktok goes away , thats what understood to be the path forward . No, not necessarily, the economy in china is taking right now, chris, xi jinping, the paramount leader is trying to help resuscitate the chinese economy right now. And basically, theres been a shift in thinking about how they would view bytedance, and whether they would zero out that investment, which is worth billions and billions of dollars right now, even at the same time theyre trying to resuscitate their economy. I think that whatever happens, its up to bytedance and beijing, but we dont want beijing to control this platform. Theres another argument that ive seen, which is basically look, we have Foreign Companies that operate in the u. S. All the time, and we have regulations that all companies have to adhere to. If you are a foreign Car Manufacturer anyone to sell here, its got to comply with what the regulators say like if there are concerns about control, data privacy, whatever, you could just pass some package of regulations for all Social Media Apps and say this is the standard, doesnt matter if your instagram or tiktok, you have to abide but we are just going after tiktok, why . You cant regulate the ccp. Its one thing if there was truly a private entity that was investing here and its not a foreign adversary, controlled Entity Investing here but what we have is the ccp controlling this entity and as a consequence let me stop you there. What does that mean . When you say the ccp controls it. Theres a lot of things that could mean like theres someone sitting there with a button like show chris hayes this or there someone at the top making sure like it cascades down, put some meat on the bones of that assertion. Sure, there are a couple of laws in place in china, the National Security law of 2017 which requires that any company in china, must provide access to the ccp, to all of its data, on any user, anywhere in the world, any customer or client, anywhere in the world. In addition there something called the 1993 company law in china which requires that the ccp embed a cell, a party sell at the highest ranks of the country to ultimately control the companys operations, both of those are in effect with effect to bytedance, now tiktok repeatedly has tried to assure american regulators that they can divorce themselves from bytedance and their control and ultimately the ccps control but however, repeatedly the representations have been false, first, they claimed that american user data would be stored here in america or in singapore. That was false. A lot of the data is stored on prc servers including sensitive financial data, second, they claimed that nobody in china would be able to access this american user data, that was also proven to be false because people in china, routinely engineers in china routinely access the data, even unbeknownst to tiktok usa employees, and third and finally, they claim none of this data had ever been weaponized against americans. That was false. The best example of this was the surveillance of american journalist, using their geolocation data on tiktok because they had revealed that the previous representations have been false, so when they keep making these false representations and not being candid, that further makes lawmakers very suspicious. Congressman, you announced a big victory today, we will see where it goes in the senate. Thanks for joining us. Coming up, and a consequential week for the georgia prosecution, its not the big decision that you thought it would be but it has a lot of effect, what does it mean for the case against the expresident , we will get into ase it, next. It, next. Work with advisors who create a plan with you, and help you find the right investments. So great getting to know you, lets take a look at your new investment plan. Ok, great this should have you moving in the right direction. Thanks jen. Get ongoing advice; and manage your investments in the chase mobile app. Ma, ma, ma clears throat for fast sore throat relief, try Vicks Vapocool drops. With two times more menthol per drop, and powerful vicks vapors to vaporize sore throat pain. Vicks vapocool drops. Vaporize sore throat pain. [music this little light of mine] in the worlds poorest places, children with cleft conditions live in darkness and shame. Vicks vapocool drops. Theyre shunned, outcast, living in pain. 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The second of course the rolling on Disqualifying Fani Willis over what the defense contends is a contract conflict of interest. Some of what the judge today could shed some light on how he may rule on that. Joining me now to decode the ruling is katie saying, former prosecutor, youve been following this case almost closer than anyone else. First, just take us through what arguments the defense made about the charges here and why the judge felt compelled to discard them . So there is a vehicle and criminal procedure in georgia call is national demurrer and basically its the defense saying we need more specificity if we want to be able to adequately prepare our defense against the charges that have been set forth in the indictment and judge mcafee found that in certain respects, some of the counts of the indictment that was returned by a grand jury, i want to emphasize that, some of these counts actually did meet that standard to be Meriting Eating dismissed pursuant to a special demurrer, the idea is its all the same charges, solicitation of a State Official to violate and overcome all of these State Officials, they all took an oath, and what judge mcafee said was look, if youre going to charge these particular defendants, what you are going to have to do is the Constitution And The Georgia constitution have so many different amendments, clauses, youve got to be able to specify which of those clauses of the constitutions were violated by these particular defendants. That is it. And as you noted in the setup, chris, the judge made sure it was clear for him to note in a footnote, the entire indictment is not dismissed, fani willis can seek the indictment on these particular charges with a grand jury. She can seek to appeal it or she can cut her losses right now and say im good to go but otherwise, t