WEBVTT

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Welcome to the Hot Dish Comfort Food for middle America. I'm Heidi

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Heitkamp. And I'm Joel Heitkamp. Heidi, we have a lot going on

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in this episode, and I'm gonna start by asking you a question.

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What do you know about TikTok? I

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know only when people send me videos that I can't watch because

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I've never downloaded the platform because I've always believed that

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it would create security problems for me. But I also

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know that, you know, when they were run ads to kind of protect TikTok, they

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have a nun. And I thought that was genius. And a lot of people use

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it. Well, there's no question about that. You know, the world

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I live in, the horse is out of the barn, right? I mean, it's done,

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it's over, it's out there. If they were going to get information, they're locked

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in, they got information. And anyone who thinks the Chinese government

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doesn't collect all this data is just not paying

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attention. But we're going to have more on this episode on

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TikTok later. But want to cover something because you've been on the radio

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a lot, a lot of people in full on panic,

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if not confusion, but if not full on panic

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over the OMB memo regarding the freeze

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on federal expenditures. It's like the chaos

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is back. And what I find interesting, Joel, about this

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is he finally had to back up, which Donald Trump doesn't

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do very often. He backed up, withdrew the memo, and then

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blamed the media because they spread misinformation. He

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has any opportunity to clarify what he meant in that memo.

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He didn't know what he meant. And all of a sudden they got caught. I

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had Senator Cramer on with me and I asked him, I flat out

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asked him, is what Donald Trump doing

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legal? And he kind of danced around it a little bit.

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And I pushed back. I said, I can understand executive orders

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that Joe Biden had. In reversing executive orders, Donald Trump

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is the chief executive. But to reverse what

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Congress passed and is in the law

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budget items, I mean, is that legal? And finally got

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the, the senator to come out and say, no, it's not legal. And then

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I said, what are you going to do about it? It was simple, right?

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What are you going to do about it? And he said, well, it's making its

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way through the courts. And I said, he didn't attack the courts, he

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didn't attack the judiciary. He, he attacked you, the halls

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of Congress. Are you going to retain your power or not?

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And basically what he told me, it isn't basic. This is what he told

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me. He said, well, we know now that we have the ability to

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sue the executive branch. I said, well, you're going to sue him?

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Are you bringing a lawsuit? The truth of the matter is, Heidi, they're afraid of

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him, and he can do whatever he wants. He had to back

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up because there was a lot of people on SNAP and on fuel

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assistance and a lot of people that needed help. And he couldn't even

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answer the question at, through the press conference about

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Medicaid. So he wasn't ready. He

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wasn't ready, Heidi. Well, and I think this is one of those, oh,

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it sounds really good. Let's just put a complete pause. And then all

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of a sudden, people who are waiting for FEMA assistance

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aren't getting it. All of a sudden, you know, farmers aren't getting their

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disaster payments. And, you know, I thought it was interesting because

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people who support Donald Trump had basically said,

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oh, don't got nothing to see here. Well, there was something to see

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here, and this was real. And I told a group that

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I'm part of who has secured a number of

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federal grants. I said, don't count on them. Don't count on this money

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coming, because, you know, they're gonna go back and re

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trench and figure out where they can push the button. And the

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one thing that didn't get changed is all of the foreign assistance, the money

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that goes to NGOs and to organizations like,

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like the World Food Program, like usaid, to

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basically provide hunger assistance throughout the world, that money

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is gone. I mean, they have frozen that out of the State Department. And

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so I think it's really important for people to say, is this what I

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voted for? And in the meantime, eggs are at a record high

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and gas is going up and, you know, inflation,

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guess what? Your insurance bill's not going down. You know, so

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if this was about the economy, let's focus on the economy. But none of

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this is helping the economy. And, you know, I'm a fiscal

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conservative, probably a hawkish about a lot of this. But the bottom line

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is right now, federal expenditures are about 25% of

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the overall economy. And when you. And that's because

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these investments in infrastructure, you know, roads, highways, when

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you cut that out, it's going to have a negative effect

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on a lot of people in this country. I'm not saying we shouldn't have

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a very harsh discussion about what we can afford anymore in

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this country. But guess what? When the airport authority doesn't

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worry about whether their construction is going to halt. But we don't have food to

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feed hungry children. There's a prioritization

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here that needs to be talked about. When you look at what

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Donald Trump did here one day I got. You

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don't understand it, Joel. So then I went through the website and said, okay,

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tell me, is this banned? Is that banned? Is that froze? Is this

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froze? The next day, when he completely reversed

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himself, somebody called into my show and said, you owe the people that

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listened to you an apology. See, and I

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did exactly what you're doing. I just broke out laughing and I

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said, you still can't tell me what was

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frozen. And in fact, I still think he's still doing some of

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that and people aren't tracking it. And so the issue I brought up, a lot

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of people listen to us here on the Hot Dish on One country,

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the one thing. And I'm going to give you just a couple examples. Number one,

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we were dry last year. We got dry. If you got in the

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field early here in the upper Midwest, you had a pretty decent

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crop. But after that, the rains quit, okay? Some of those

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guys still got 200 bushel corn on the Northern Plains. The reason

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they got 200 bushel corn is because of the research that is done by

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NDSU and sdsu. Those people don't

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know if they're going to get any research dollars. Then I raised the question

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on my show of crop insurance because we don't have a new farm bill, you

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know, and if he's going to just take it upon himself to dictate and

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mandate whatever he wants, and Project

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2025 says get rid of it, which is his

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blueprint. That's his game plan. I mean, ask the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas

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City Chiefs. They have a game plan, right? Well, his game plan is

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Project 2025. It gets rid of

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federal crop insurance. And so I

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think some of these people are finally waking up about how much

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he's putting them in danger. I'm a little nerdy on this because

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when I was in college, actually a junior in college, I did a

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whole paper on the Budget Empowerment Act. I mean, that

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sounds really boring, but I thought it was fascinating. And what

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caused the passage of the Budget Empowerment act is Richard Nixon did

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the same thing. Richard Nixon basically said, I'm not going to

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spend the money that Congress has appropriated. And Congress back

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then, when it actually worked and responded using their Article

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1 authority, passed the Budget Empowerment Act. That's why the fiscal

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year starts in September. That was the first move. And they basically

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said that the President you know, at the time they were talking about the imperial

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presidency, the President does not have the authority to

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not, they implement the laws. They don't determine,

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you know, what the laws are. And so now when you go back and

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you look at that Budget Empowerment act, we're in the same spot that we were

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before. And should we curtail spending, should we

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get rid of waste, should we do all the things that need to be done

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in terms of prioritization of the federal budget.

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Absolutely. But it needs to be done in conjunction with the

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Congress and it needs to be done in full transparency with the American

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public so they can decide is this the direction we want the

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government to go. And if you thought that we aren't

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headed for autocracy, you should really think that because

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the power of the purse is the power of government. And what

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Donald Trump said is, I don't care what Congress does, I am going

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to make these decisions for the rest of the country. And

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I think your discussion with Senator Cramer. Absolutely. Right

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on. They should have that discussion with everyone.

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So the power that Donald Trump holds over Republicans in

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Congress is primary. I mean that's his

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power, that he's gonna primary them, that he's gonna find a

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MAGA candidate. He does it anyway. If he doesn't like you, whether or not you

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toe his line or not. But that's his power.

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If you're those individuals and you're that worried about reelection

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and he's cutting heating assistance and he's cutting SNAP

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and you've gotta go back to these districts and he's cutting

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crop insurance and you've got to go back to those states, those districts,

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and run based upon what you've just

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allowed to happen. It doesn't matter if you're

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primaried, you're going to lose. I mean

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that image in that campaign of that 80 year old lady who

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no longer has heating fuel in her house or no longer

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has food. Because you and I both know that people that use

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SNAP, that the majority of them are elderly or they're working.

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Yeah. Or working. They're working poor. Yeah. And so, you know, here

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you sit. And if I'm a congressman, I don't want to go home

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and run in a district that he beat up like that just by a stroke

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of a pen. I don't hide. Yeah. Well, you know,

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there's a reason why he backed up and apparently pretty thin

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skinned over at the White House because a lot of members were calling saying

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you got to fix this. And, and he didn't like being told what to do

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by Congress. And so I think that every

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day, Joel, I kind of didn't think this would happen, and I guess I'm

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naive. Every day there is something else.

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And now we have this tragic, tragic

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accident. And the first response is to blame someone

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as opposed to try and figure out how it was that a military

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helicopter was within the flight plan of an American

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jet. I mean, that was a military helicopter.

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So, you know, what's it doing there? And, you know, we'll find

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out more and more, but the reaction always is, how do I

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blame someone else as opposed to how do I fix the problem?

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So, Joel, let's change the subject. Let's talk about national security and

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social media and let's talk about TikTok. You know, listeners,

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you probably heard about TikTok, but you might not know,

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you know, what it is. It's a social media app for sharing short

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videos that a lot of folks love, especially younger people. A lot

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of people have businesses that depend on TikTok,

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and folks use it to educate and share information, important

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information. For example, you've got people like Tyler Froberg,

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a fourth generation farmer who's teaching veterans how to

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farm diversified fruits and vegetables in Texas. His

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TikTok channel has

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850,000 followers.

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Morgan Gold, who left corporate America to become a farmer. He

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uses TikTok to help people understand the finances of

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owning and running a farm. He has over 2

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million followers. Alexis Nikole

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Nelson, whose educational video is about foraging and

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cooking wild plants, have brought her 4.5

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million followers. These people are doing good work with

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TikTok, but we all know, right, it has some

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problems. I mean, you know, we have to rely

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somewhat on the folks in Congress who have access

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to a lot more intel about the potential damage that

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TikTok would do. But you also have to wonder, Joel, is

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the cat out of the bag? Are we just a little late to this show?

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So I think having this discussion right

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now is critical. And so no one wants the

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Chinese government to have access to all the data about every single TikTok

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user anywhere in the world. And that should and does make

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a lot of people, especially cybersecurity specialists,

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very nervous. Last year, Congress passed a law banning TikTok

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unless it was purchased by American company. Donald Trump actually

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proposed this when he was president and originally agreed with it,

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but now he's changed his mind. Probably has something to do with the campaign contribution

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or with the fact that he got a lot of followers on TikTok, so now

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it's his platform. So I'm really excited to have this

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conversation to help us understand all of this. I'm here with David

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Dorfman, deputy staff director and chief counsel of the

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House Select Committee on China, but also an old friend. We

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worked together on some reg reform stuff when I was in the Senate.

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David led the drafting, strategy, and bipartisan

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negotiations for the Protecting America from

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Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. That's a

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big wordful. But mainly it was the TikTok divestiture

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law. Welcome to the Hot Dish, David. Thanks so much for having me. Senator,

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it's an honor to be here. You know, I'm a huge fan of your show

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and actually a rural American myself back in the day, so it's great

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to be here. Well, listen, I think there's a lot of confusion, because

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every time someone says, it's a TikTok ban statute, I have

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fingernails kind of on the chalkboard. Because it doesn't ban

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TikTok. Tell us what the law actually does. Senator, you hit the

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nail on the head. This is not a ban. TikTok has been

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lying, deceiving its users, telling them it's something it's

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not. All this law requires in order for TikTok to

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remain available in the United States is for ByteDance to sell

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the application to an American company, a Canadian

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company, a company that's not based in China, Russia, North Korea, or

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Iran. So explain ByteDance. Well,

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ByteDance is the parent company of TikTok, and unfortunately, it's

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controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. That is what Congress

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determined. And the problem with having a

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Chinese company control an app that 170 million

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Americans use is not that hard to understand, actually.

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I mean, a lot of TikTok users joke that the TikTok

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algorithm knows them better than they know themselves. It knows exactly what they

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want to see, and people hand over a lot of data about their

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usage, their identity, et cetera. Think about what China

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could do with that. It's, it's not hard to figure out. Yeah, and there

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is. There is an argument that the algorithm kind of

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analysis that people like so much on TikTok is actually owned by

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ByteDance. And so they don't want to give up that technology to

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an American company. So they're kind of playing fast and loose with,

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oh, you're banning TikTok. You're not banning TikTok. You're saying it can only be

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owned by an American company. And I want to make this point, which

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is the Chinese would never let this happen in

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China. Absolutely. You know, and frankly, our Founding

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Fathers would have never allowed this to happen. In America. Can you

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imagine if after independence, you know, or brand new United

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States and there were British soldiers deciding who got to go into

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Boston Common and you had to hand over all your data in order to speak

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your mind in the town square of that day? I mean, they would have laughed

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that arrangement out of the room. Would we have allowed the Soviets to own

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major broadcast networks? No. So this

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is no different. This is simply the 21st century version of a long

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standing principle of American jurisprudence and

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regulating foreign ownership and national security. So

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I'm on television quite a bit and I have

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panelists who always argue with me, oh, this is terrible.

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You're just. And I just say you don't know what you don't know. And having

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been in the Senate and knowing that there are

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briefings, intel briefings that are carried out, there's a whole

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intel committee, you know, there is a lot people don't

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know about what's currently happening and what the risk is and Congress

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can't tell them. And that puts you definitely at a different, as a

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disadvantage. You know, that's certainly true, Senator. But you know, one thing

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that speaks volumes is the historic bipartisan

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margins this passed by and the fact that two presidents

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of separate political parties reached the same conclusion about

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this. I mean, honestly think about this timeline, Senator.

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Look, I led our investigation and bytedance, I got so in the weeds of this

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stuff. And we had our all hands on deck briefing for our committee

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on January 18 of last year. On

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March 5, we introduced the bill. Two days later, on

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March 7, it was marked up in the Energy and Commerce Committee after another

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classified briefing unanimously. Senator, you know, the

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Energy and Commerce Committee, a 500 vote

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in favor of this law. Unheard of. Unheard of. And then

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we went to the House floor the next week.

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Over360 votes in 2024,

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in our sadly partisan era, also unheard

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of. We passed the House again, equally large

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margin, we passed the Senate almost 80 votes. This

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is truly a model for how Congress can still

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get big things done even in this very partisan time.

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Yeah, and I had a discussion with a renowned

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constitutional scholar, literally because I'm at the University of

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Chicago. And it was interesting because he kept arguing

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with me that this act was in violation of

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free expression and free speech. And I kept saying it's a

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platform. So I think Supreme Court agreed with

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me. Not that that's a badge of honor these days. So I'm going

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to, I'm going to give you the practical response. Look, you waited too

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long. You let it get a toehold, you Let you know how many

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130 million Americans use this platform.

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Get used to it. Love it. And then you said, oh, no, no, no.

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Now that you've given all your information to the Chinese, we're going to take

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this platform away. And isn't this a little like,

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too little too late? Well, I can't say the legislative

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process is perfect. Certainly it would have been better if Congress was

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able to come together and do this earlier. But we've been trying and

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frankly, we've been failing for years. It was our strategy and

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it was the ranking member's leadership that really got this across the

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finish line. Finally, in 2020, there were executive orders to try

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to force a divestiture. The court struck that down. It relied on

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something called IEPA. There's an exception in it that didn't allow for that

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to be upheld. The next President tried to do this through the CFIUS

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Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States process. That got held

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up too. Certain states tried to do this for different

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reasons at the state level. And there were multiple bills

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in Congress, the Restrict act, multiple others that

314
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unfortunately didn't go anywhere. What set us

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apart is we scoped this right, we

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employed smart strategy, we drafted it in a

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constitutional manner, and we got it across the finish

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line. And what truly I think is

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so monumental about this is that,

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yes, it would have been ideal if we acted on this

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threat sooner, but now, because of this law, the President

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will have the authority to prevent similar threats from emerging.

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A little pet issue of mine was people don't know.

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ByteDance actually is one of the largest VR virtual reality

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headset manufacturers in the world. And this law

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even includes the authority to address that threat,

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augmented or immersive technologies. So going forward, we now have

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the framework to do exactly what you said, Senator, and prevent similar

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threats from emerging. So I just want to pivot just for a second

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into Deep Seek and into kind of this AI

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race that we're in with China and just draw on your

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expertise. Are we losing the fight? Are we winning the fight?

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Where are we at with the Chinese as it relates to AI?

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Well, I've been actually leading a lot of work for the ranking

335
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member on this very issue. And I spent a lot of my time in

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Congress actually on the cutting edge of AI regulation and promoting AI

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innovation. And I think this moment should be a wake up call

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for all Americans. Winning this race is not inevitable.

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We need to invest in innovation, we need to

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regulate responsibly, and we need to take Deep seek

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seriously. We can't stagnate and we can't wait much

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longer. If we don't act on this very troubling

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development soon, it may be too late. Well, I think it's interesting

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because it's attractive from a standpoint of if, in fact

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it uses less energy, if it provides greater

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transparency. I've been reading all this stuff. I am just a, I

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mean, I am kind of a groupie on AI, but

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I think I know enough to know how much I don't know. And so, David,

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we are going to get together again and talk about kind of

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where tech regulation is headed, what you see in the next four

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years. I think one thing we can all learn from the TikTok law

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is, you know, whatever is going on in society, Congress still

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can get big things done on a bipartisan basis. You know, folks

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said we couldn't do this. We got it done. And that's because

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honestly, as you know all too well, there are good folks on Capitol Hill

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who are fighting hard for our national security. We're going to keep fighting the good

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fight and making sure that our national security is

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protected. Can you come back and talk about kind of

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technology, technology regulation and where it's headed and I

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particularly given that both of us hail from rural places,

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what that means. Absolutely, Senator, happy to come on

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anytime. It's so important that Congress take action on

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AI for too long, we forgot that we're Article 1

364
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of the Constitution over here. When there's a big issue of the day, no matter

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what it is, we got to step up, we got to do our jobs. And

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I think the TikTok law is a perfect example of how we can in fact,

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do that. Yeah. Thanks so much, David, for coming on.

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That was a really interesting conversation. But we also wanted you to

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hear from a user's perspective. Sayen Gates

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is a small business owner in South Carolina who's used TikTok to

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grow her life coaching business. She's

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already experienced challenges with the on again, off

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again TikTok band. But you know what? We'll let her explain.

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I started using TikTok around 2020. That

375
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was during the time that I realized what my gift was. I was out here

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giving my, my pearls to my friends and I'm like, well,

377
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probably not too many people know about the basics of

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communication or the basics of like, how to approach someone

379
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or how to manifest your dreams. I started to notice people

380
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that were emailing me or they would text me

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about like, what are some things that I can do to communicate

382
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better? Or how much do you charge? And I was

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like, okay, this, this seems like a legitimate business. I got my

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llc and then after that I had been

385
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branching out ever since. I started to see a shift

386
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when I got to about a thousand followers to know that I was doing

387
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something right. I expanded to other platforms,

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but they didn't see as much progressive as it was on

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TikTok. The banning concern for

390
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TikTok. I understand the concern because number

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one, we have to think about the influence that we have on

392
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children as well as teenagers because they're following this type of

393
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stuff. My niece knows the Renegade dance because of TikTok

394
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and she follows that. And there's a lot of

395
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positive content on TikTok.

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However, it's overshadowed by all the

397
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mess that we don't see, like, the good in it. And I

398
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understand like the concern about it. And I can only speak for,

399
00:24:38.822 --> 00:24:42.424
like myself and for a friend of mine

400
00:24:42.472 --> 00:24:46.056
who has a lot of followers. That was

401
00:24:46.128 --> 00:24:49.912
her ticket out of doing a 9 to 5. And it's not

402
00:24:49.936 --> 00:24:52.808
like she didn't want to do a 9 to 5. It was just the fact

403
00:24:52.864 --> 00:24:56.696
of she noticed that when she was on TikTok, she

404
00:24:56.768 --> 00:25:00.296
made what she made at her job in

405
00:25:00.368 --> 00:25:03.672
24 hours. And we're talking about like five to

406
00:25:03.696 --> 00:25:07.184
$800. Now that income is being

407
00:25:07.312 --> 00:25:10.896
retracted because there's national security

408
00:25:10.968 --> 00:25:14.400
at State. So for me personally, I can, I can

409
00:25:14.440 --> 00:25:18.032
still be on the ground running when it comes to when

410
00:25:18.056 --> 00:25:21.840
Tik Tok leaves or if it's going to stay. But I know

411
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for people like her that was hoping that this was a way out because a

412
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lot of people don't know that like some jobs have

413
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very toxic environments and sometimes for people that

414
00:25:32.936 --> 00:25:36.750
are neurodivergent, that's not always a safe thing because those are

415
00:25:36.790 --> 00:25:40.302
normal thinking. Feel like we have to process everything their way.

416
00:25:40.406 --> 00:25:43.950
And sometimes it's not like that. So now you found a

417
00:25:43.990 --> 00:25:47.838
space where you can actually be yourself and you don't have to worry about

418
00:25:47.894 --> 00:25:51.694
too much judgment. And now it's going away and you're freaking

419
00:25:51.742 --> 00:25:55.502
out because now you have to go back into the, the societal norm, if

420
00:25:55.526 --> 00:25:59.290
that makes any sense. It has affected my business

421
00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:03.992
because I don't get those messages anymore now that we know

422
00:26:04.016 --> 00:26:07.464
that TikTok is banned. And then also my

423
00:26:07.632 --> 00:26:11.320
follower count has decreased and it's like that is a drastic

424
00:26:11.400 --> 00:26:15.160
gap. I was like, I worked really hard to build

425
00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:18.744
my content and my platform, only for it to be decreased like

426
00:26:18.752 --> 00:26:22.360
that. That didn't feel great for me. So now I'm

427
00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:26.088
forced to be more aggressive in being on the ground with things

428
00:26:26.144 --> 00:26:29.542
or just posting stuff on Instagram and

429
00:26:29.726 --> 00:26:33.462
YouTube. And I right now my personal opinion is we're about

430
00:26:33.486 --> 00:26:36.982
to see a flood of ads on YouTube

431
00:26:37.126 --> 00:26:40.758
for businesses now that they can't sell their product on TikTok shop

432
00:26:40.774 --> 00:26:44.582
anymore because TikTok shop is not going to exist. I

433
00:26:44.686 --> 00:26:48.438
don't have TikTok on my phone anymore because I deleted it

434
00:26:48.494 --> 00:26:51.510
because I knew that I wouldn't use it, but I could still access it from

435
00:26:51.550 --> 00:26:54.908
my computer. But now the transition

436
00:26:55.084 --> 00:26:58.876
is trying to get all my videos of old

437
00:26:58.948 --> 00:27:02.556
and transfer it to another place, whether it be Instagram or.

438
00:27:02.628 --> 00:27:06.300
Now the thing is, Lemon 8. Lemon 8 was

439
00:27:06.340 --> 00:27:10.012
announced around the time that they were trying to figure out whether or not they

440
00:27:10.036 --> 00:27:13.660
were going to actually ban it or they were going to find

441
00:27:13.700 --> 00:27:17.532
another place to do it. The problem with that was that it

442
00:27:17.556 --> 00:27:20.340
says on the bottom of the app it says powered by

443
00:27:20.500 --> 00:27:23.972
TikTok. So I had two speculations. Either

444
00:27:24.036 --> 00:27:27.876
one, it's also going to be shut off by the law because it's

445
00:27:27.908 --> 00:27:31.668
attached to TikTok. Or two, we'll be fine and we'll

446
00:27:31.684 --> 00:27:35.076
have an extra platform. We don't have to go to Kick or anybody else.

447
00:27:35.188 --> 00:27:38.900
But that soon became a horror show because once

448
00:27:38.940 --> 00:27:41.092
I tried to go on Lemon 8, it wouldn't allow me to get on there

449
00:27:41.116 --> 00:27:44.948
either. So now you have to make a video. And I've seen many

450
00:27:45.004 --> 00:27:48.470
creators do that and they did it on Lemon 8. They would make

451
00:27:48.510 --> 00:27:52.214
videos saying, hey guys, it looks like they're finally shutting us down.

452
00:27:52.382 --> 00:27:56.198
So follow me on Lemon8, follow me on Instagram, follow me on YouTube. It's

453
00:27:56.214 --> 00:27:59.974
like now it's time for those other platforms to shine. Now because

454
00:28:00.062 --> 00:28:03.414
of the fact that TikTok is not going to be the center of the universe

455
00:28:03.462 --> 00:28:07.286
anymore. And when we found out that Lemonade

456
00:28:07.318 --> 00:28:11.046
is not opposed in this situation, then everybody's

457
00:28:11.078 --> 00:28:14.230
like, oh no, now we have to get all these platforms. We didn't really, we

458
00:28:14.270 --> 00:28:17.952
thought was low maintenance. And I'm just, I mean I've already had

459
00:28:17.976 --> 00:28:21.472
them since 2020. I'm. I'm not scrambling too much

460
00:28:21.656 --> 00:28:25.088
to do it now. Shifting some things maybe, yes, but

461
00:28:25.144 --> 00:28:28.832
that's. That, that has been a whole different thing. This, this

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ban has been very stressful.

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You know, Joel, it just goes to show how complicated some issues

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really are. There are good arguments on both sides and that's why we need

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competent, clear headed leaders to make sense of all of this as we

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move forward in our country. You know, you said it. We just

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hope you understand the TikTok Ban issue a little bit better.

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Let us know what side you'd take or how you'd solve

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this. Email

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us at podcast@onecountryproject.org

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and let us know. That's

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podcast@onecountryproject.org

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00:29:06.418 --> 00:29:10.148
and thanks always for joining. Us on the Hot Dish. It's brought

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to you by One Country Project, which is making sure that the voices of

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00:29:14.044 --> 00:29:16.724
the rest of us are heard in Washington. Learn

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00:29:16.772 --> 00:29:20.612
more at onecountryproject.org that's where

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you can find more information about the work that we do at One Country. And

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we'll be back in two weeks with more Hot Dish Comfort food for

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Middle America.