Rand Paul: Banning TikTok Is 'Group Hysteria'

"Every day I confront a bill that wants to ban another Chinese company," the Kentucky senator tells Reason.

Attacks on TikTok are "part of an overall hysteria on the hill about China," says Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.). Sensing a Congressional attitude shift on the app after President Donald Trump came to its defense, Paul recently introduced the "Repeal the TikTok Ban Act." Paul's bill would scrap last year's mandate saying that China-based ByteDance must sell off its U.S. TikTok operations or face a ban in this country, a provision that was part of a larger bill known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

The move is part of Paul's broader project of trying to keep alive a "consistently free trade and free markets" wing within the Republican Party. "I don't want that part of the party to die, and [Republicans] just to become the nationalist populist party," Paul tells Reason.

We talked Friday morning about TikTok, the trouble with isolating ourselves from China, Trump's pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, the divisions between conservatives and libertarians on speech, and more. Below is a portion of our conversation, edited for clarity and length.

Reason: Can you tell me about your new "Repeal the TikTok Ban Act"—what it would do and why it's necessary?

Rand Paul: I've been fighting against the TikTok ban since the idea came around a couple of years ago. I think it's part of an overall hysteria on the hill about China, and also a misguided approach to wanting things to be better. They think, "Well, we'll just tell China we don't like them doing this, and we'll put sanctions on them, we'll ban their stuff, and then they'll do better." I think it's actually the opposite. I think the more you ban trade, the more you separate yourself, the more you ban things like TikTok, the worse relations get. The less likely they are to do things you want them to do and the more likely, frankly, the ultimate worst outcome of war is.

In that context, I've opposed the TikTok ban…I do think it infringes on free speech. I think the [Supreme] Court got it wrong. I don't think there's a national security exception to the First Amendment. I think [the Court] listened to the First Amendment arguments and they just said, "Oh, well, if Congress says there's a safety concern, we'll listen to Congress." But I don't buy that, nor do I think they proved their case. I think they made an assertion that all your data is going to the Chinese Communist Party, but it's more assertion than it is proof. There's also an argument that many apps—Meta, Google, YouTube—they're all scraping data and many of that's for sale on the open market and can be bought by the Chinese anytime they wanted to, so there is that argument as well.

The reason of the repeal bill now is that many of the people who voted for this, now that [President] Donald Trump has changed his mind, they all seem to be changing their mind, too. There actually is a possibility that something like a repeal could pass. I don't think it's probable passing, but I want it to be out there—I want something [where] if you're on TikTok or you're a user or you're some kind of influencer on there, it's at least something to rally around to try to support.

Do you have any sense of your colleagues' mood on repeal? I imagine Trump's Monday executive order—postponing enforcement of the TikTok ban, which was slated to start January 19, and effectively extending the time for ByteDance to find a buyer—might have shifted some opinions?

Definitely the mood has changed. A lot of [former supporters of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act] are for the extension.

I think another thing [about] the Supreme Court—it's amazing, for really smart men and women—I don't think they entertained the idea that this is a takings at all…I would've argued that it's a takings, as well. There are many American citizens that own part of TikTok. Sixty percent of it is international investors.

If I told you Reason magazine was doing something nefarious and I accused you of it, I couldn't just take Reason magazine unless I took you to court and proved it in court. Accusations in our country usually aren't enough to take someone's property.

We're not even at war, but it's a time at which we have an adversarial relationship, people are concerned about China. So, they just throw out the First Amendment and say, "Oh, well they're an adversary. Congress thinks it keeps us safe." But nobody really has to prove any of those points, and you take someone's property and then you also abbreviate people's right to speech.

Have you talked to Trump about your bill?

No, but I think it captures his change in mood. What I like to do is try to capitalize on the times. My viewpoints are based on principle and don't often change, and so I am where I am on the TikTok thing. But I've seen the landscape changing and as the landscape changes, I think it's important to be there.

I think some of [Trump's] instincts on this are good. I'm not sure why he got going the other direction when he tried to ban it the first time, but some of the people around him—that's why in the first administration I was so adamant about [former National Security Adviser] John Bolton being just a disaster to any kind of libertarian notion of foreign policy. And I think some of Trump's instincts on foreign policy are for peace, for less intervention.

They're not libertarian in any structured way. But look at what he did for Ross Ulbricht. No mainstream Republican would've ever done that. No mainstream Democrat. In many ways, while [Trump] is not a libertarian, he probably did one of the most libertarian pardons we've had in the history of the country by pardoning Ross.

If we could get him to do the same for Edward Snowden—Edward Snowden is actually even much more of a principled constitutional case. It was about him revealing what many people believed to be unconstitutional with those court orders to get our cell records.

What is your take on Trump's executive order related to TikTok?

I don't think the law allows him to do it….But also, I don't want to spend a lot of my time blasting the president for doing something that the end result's probably going to be good….I don't know what to think about the extension. I hope something can happen during that period of time. I'm not overly optimistic though.

It's another concept of a takings in the sense that TikTok—they have been public valuations of 100 billion for the American portion, and people are offering 20 billion. The reason they're offering so little—and they haven't been entertained—is because they think it's a fire sale, because the government's forcing [ByteDance] to sell.

It's the same way with banning Nippon Steel from buying U.S. Steel. They were going to pay 14.9 billion, but what do you think it becomes worth when you ban Nippon from buying it? The next person's probably going to offer 10 or 8 billion. Half the value's gone by the government banning suitors of U.S. Steel or banning TikTok.

With this thing on TikTok, it's not isolated. I would say it's a group hysteria, and every day it's getting worse. Every day I confront a bill that wants to ban another Chinese company. I look at it from the perspective not only of freedom of trade, but I also look at it from the prosperity argument—that it makes us all richer, basically, in America to trade with countries, even ones we don't like….There are companies in my state that employ thousands of workers and are actually owned by Chinese businessman….I have 1,000 Kentuckians working for a company with good wages and people are always trying to shut them down and punish them. They think they're punishing China, but they're really punishing Americans.

I'm very frustrated at how few principled people are in favor of trade anymore. It used to be a pretty easy, bipartisan dominance of the idea that trade made us all richer.

I'm glad you brought up the trade angle, because often people think only about the free speech elements, but you're obviously right that this is very much a trade and takings issue too. Are you on TikTok?

We just joined it recently, on the last day. I said now that they're banning it, I want to join, just because they're telling me I can't. I am enough of a contrarian to say if you tell me I can't do something, then I want to do it.

You mentioned Ross Ulbricht earlier. I think the thing tying Ulbricht and TikTok things together is that a lot of people want to punish websites where speech or connections take place instead of the individuals responsible for any potentially bad behavior.

I think this is more of a justice question and an injustice question. The worst sentences seem to be the people the least guilty. With Ross Ulbricht, people selling millions of dollars of drugs got five and 10 years—which is probably too much for them also—and then he gets two life sentences for creating a website….His conviction was for setting up a place for people to sell. That'd be like me having a vacant lot and letting word get out that you can come to my vacant lot at night and sell drugs. And now my vacant lot, because I let you use it, I should go to jail for two life sentences? What [Ulbricht] got was blatantly unfair and Trump went even farther than most thought, he gave him a full pardon.

Is there anything else people should know about your TikTok bill that we haven't talked about yet?

Just that we want people who are libertarian and libertarian-leaning to notice what we're trying to do on this. We want to try to motivate people, publicly, to try to have a public movement for free trade, so there's still a free trade movement within the Republican Party, that there's still a libertarian-leaning free speech movement in the Republican Party, that there are still people who don't believe we should break up big business just because they're big.

I think one of the real divisions between conservatives and libertarians on speech is that conservatives get mad if Google or YouTube doesn't host speech, and want to make them host our speech. Because they want the right side of the argument to be posted, they want to mandate it. I'm absolutely opposed to that. I don't think government should be meeting with TikTok and trying to influence speech, but neither do I want to tell TikTok—or Twitter before Elon Musk—that they have to host me.

I was kicked off YouTube for saying masks don't work—the cloth masks have no value at all. I would still say that again, and I get mad at YouTube, but I met with Google yesterday and I don't tell them, "I want you to host me." I tell them it's a bad business decision for you to make everybody on the right think you don't like us, because then we don't want to use you because of that. But there is a difference between mandating that people accept your speech and complaining about it and then just saying, "we don't want the government to be fostering the removal of our speech."

You said you met with Google yesterday. Do you think there's more of a openness amongst tech people these days to meet with Republicans?

I've always met with the different tech companies. I can't say that they're overly supportive or punitive towards me, but they're open. They see me as somebody who has less big-government ideas on breaking up companies, less big-government ideas on speech. I think they see me as somebody that's open on our side. There aren't many on the Republican side, as far as consistently free trade and free markets—it's [Utah Sen.] Mike Lee and I, for the most part, in the Senate. There isn't much else. But I don't want that part of the party to die, and us just to become the nationalist populist party.