On Schadenfreude
Co-blogger Josh Blackman here acknowledges that he hasn’t been following the legal developments in the TikTok case too closely, and that his reaction to the Attorney General’s claim that the President had “nullified the legal effects of a statute passed by large bipartisan majorities in 2024” is “schaudenfreude.”
For more than a decade, I’ve written about how the Obama Administration nullified the Affordable Care Act’s mandates, as well as immigration law through policies like DAPA and DACA. I’m sure smart lawyers can draw distinctions between the Obama orders and Trump’s orders. But I’m not sure those distinctions matter. President Obama found ways to disregard laws he didn’t like through hyper-creative means, but since those laws accomplished “positive” goals, everyone looked the other way.
I haven’t followed the developments too closely, either – though close enough to recognize that Trump is – again – defying the explicit, express command of the law.[1]
[1] The statute establishing the TikTok ban authorized the president to grant a “1-time extension of not more than 90 days” with respect to the date on which this subsection would otherwise apply” – that is, up until April 20 – but only if the president certifies to Congress concrete progress toward divestiture of TikTok—including “binding legal agreements to enable execution” of divestiture “in place.” The President recently announce
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