The World and Everything in It: January 29, 2025

PREROLL: Good morning! I’m Les Sillars, Editor-in-Chief of WORLD News Group. Do your friends ever tell you that you seem to have a lot of opinions, and you’re not shy about sharing them? Well, we've got just the thing for you.

We're looking for focus group volunteers: listeners and readers willing to tell us what you think of our stories, features, and commentaries. I hope you'll join us for one of our Zoom calls beginning February 11th. To sign up, go to wng.org/focusgroups. So please. Give your friends a break. wng.org/focusgroups

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Washington Wednesday: the pro-life pardons, and a pro-choice cabinet pick faces skepticism on Capitol Hill.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today our weekly international news roundup with Onize Oduah.

And later brave chaplains take to the front lines of a bloody conflict in South Sudan.

BENTLEY: I said, “All I can tell you is that Jesus Christ offers forgiveness for sin and hope.” And he said, “Will you come and share with my soldiers?” And I said yes.

And WORLD opinions contributor Brad Littlejohn has some questions about the decision to extend the grace period for the social media platform TikTok.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, January 29th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Federal grants & loans review/freeze » A federal judge has temporarily blocked a push by President Trump to pause funding of most federal grants and loans.

The White House said earlier in the day that the funding would be paused until February 10^th, while the administration conducted a top-to-bottom review of federal spending. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt:

LEAVITT: The reason for this is to ensure that every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken.

Laevitt said it would mean no more funding for illegal DEI initiatives, some Biden-era environmental programs, and other holdover spending from the prior administration.

Democrats strongly rebuked the move. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:

SCHUMER: This decision is lawless, dangerous, destructive, cruel. It's illegal. It’s unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan blocked the funding freeze just minutes before it was scheduled to take effect.

Leavitt White House presser debut / NJ drones » Karoline Leavitt's remarks Tuesday were her first from the White House podium.

And the new press secretary is shaking things up.

She’s providing seats traditionally used for aides to reporters from so-called “new media” outlets. She said the administration will speak to all kinds of outlets, and not just legacy media because—her words­, recent polling shows that “Americans’ trust in mass media has fallen to a record low.”

Leavitt also provided new information on those mysterious drone flights over New Jersey:

LEAVITT:  After research and study, the drones that were flying over New Jersey in large numbers were authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons.

She added that many of these drones were also hobbyists and recreational drones. And she said it got worse “due to curiosity” but they were not “enemy” drones.

Military trans order » President Trump is reversing President Biden’s policy, which had allowed transgender service members in the military. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: The president signed an executive order Tuesday stating that allowing transgender service members … is not consistent with the Pentagon’s focus on troop readiness.

The order cites the “medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria.”

It goes on to say that … “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

LGBT and liberal activist groups are suing to block the order.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Trump youth protection from tans procedures » President Donald Trump has also signed an executive order cutting off federal funds from paying for transgender surgeries performed on people 18 years old or younger.

The order says “It is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called 'transition' of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”

Transportation sec confirmed » The U.S. Senate has confirmed Sean Duffy as Transportation Secretary.

AUDIO (Duffy vote): On this vote, the yeas are 77. The nays are 22. The nomination is confirmed.

Duffy, a 53-year-old former Wisconsin congressman turned reality TV star says he’s ready to get to work.

He’s promised less regulation, but also clear rules to help companies developing self-driving cars.

Duffy also vowed to hire more air traffic controllers, cut DEI programs, and help “restore global confidence” in Boeing.

Israel - UNRWA » Israel's ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon says his country will no longer cooperate with the United Nations' leading Palestinian aid group.

DANON: UNRWA has miserably failed in its mandate, and it has failed the people who are supposed to benefit from its services.

He said that UNRWA has failed to stop the infiltration in its ranks of Hamas and other terrorist groups.

Danon announced that starting January 30^th, Israel will end all cooperation with the organization, adding that the decision was not made lightly:

DANON: It follows decades of betrayal by an agency that has placed political agendas, neglect and coverups over humanitarian principles.

Israeli officials say there are other, more effective aid groups with which the UN can partner that would have Israel’s blessing and cooperation.

Colombia update » The first deportation flight from the US to Colombia touched down on Tuesday.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday initially refused to accept two U.S. military planes with migrants. Trump responded swiftly by announcing tariffs on all Colombian imports of up to 50 percent and Petro reversed course just hours later.

The tariffs could have dealt a devastating blow to Colombia’s economy and to Gustavo Petro, politically. Elected in 20-22, recent polls have Petro’s approval rating below 40 percent. He is the country’s first leftist president in more than 50 years.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: an update from the nation's capital on Washington Wednesday. Plus, bringing hope to the battle line.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 29th of January.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

This week, confirmation hearings continue—Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. all coming to Capitol Hill. RFK’s background as a critic of vaccines concerns some in Congress, his history supporting abortion concerns others.

MAST: WORLD’s Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta has that story and others on today’s Washington Wednesday.

BANKS: Three fifth of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: For the third time in 10 years, both chambers of Congress considered the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act last week. It would impose fines and prison time on healthcare providers who do not care for a baby born after a failed abortion. And for the third time, the bill passed the House, but failed in the Senate on the first procedural vote.

LANKFORD: Disappointing day on the floor of the Senate yesterday, we were looking for a moment of just common sense, quite frankly,

Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma held a news conference last week, lamenting the lack of senators looking for common ground on abortion legislation. I caught up with him afterward. He compared the situation to bipartisan work on the Laken Riley Act.

LANKFORD: We've had a hard time obviously finding common ground on immigration. We found an area on enforcement we could agree on, passed it, it's about to become law. We’ve got to take that next step as well on the issue about life and the value of children.

With 53 seats, the Republican majority in the Senate falls short of the 60 votes required to pass most legislation. And every Democrat voted against the Born-Alive act.

While few expected Democrats to break rank on this bill, Senator Lankford says the pro-life strategy this year will be to keep the conversation going.

LANKFORD: I refuse to not speak out for children and just have them forgotten. This is a way to be able to bring it to the forefront and say, let's talk about it as a country. Let's not just ignore this, this is happening, so let's talk about it.

Other senators want to take quicker action, using executive orders and a reconciliation process to get around the 60-vote requirement. Here’s Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri speaking to WORLD in the Capitol basement:

HAWLEY: I just think right now for the foreseeable future they're not going to come along on anything life-related, so we're going to have to try to do everything we can on reconciliation, where we can do that with 51…

Budget reconciliation bills require a simple majority to pass, but must deal with legislation related to spending. So while pro-life protections may be out, a move to cut federal funding for abortion providers like Planned Parenthood would be on the table. Hawley also says President Trump can use executive actions to enforce laws like the Hyde Amendment that bar federal dollars from paying for abortions.

HAWLEY: I've urged the president to do all of those things. So I hope that he will move on that quickly and that we can work to do what we can legislatively.

In a meeting with Trump last week, Hawley also brought up the FACE Act, a law that prohibits people from blocking entrances to abortion centers. The act also prohibits blocking houses of worship and pregnancy resource centers, but has mostly been used to prosecute pro-life protesters who pray or stand near abortion center doors. Late Thursday night, Trump pardoned 23 people sentenced to years in prison for violating the FACE Act.

SOUND: Trump signing the order - big Sharpie noises

Many of those pardoned told WORLD they are ready to hit the ground running to challenge the FACE Act in court.

GALLAGHER: Since there's no longer a constitutional right, or alleged constitutional right to kill your child.

Chet Gallagher is a member of the rescue movement, which stages sit-ins at abortion centers to convince mothers to keep their unborn babies. Gallagher was about to report to prison to serve a 16 month sentence when he received his pardon.

GALLAGHER: We were found guilty in Michigan for the violation of the FACE Act, and also had a penalty of 10 years for conspiring against rights, and so there's a major move now to repeal that law.

According to a Justice Department memo released last week, prosecutors are ordered to only enforce the law “in extraordinary circumstances”. That would include significant property damage or bodily harm. A Saturday executive order repealed two Biden administration actions that Trump says violated the Hyde Amendment and politicized FACE Act enforcement.

For his second administration, Trump has vowed to leave the issue of abortion to the states. But there will be some policies related to abortion handled by federal agencies and the people Trump has appointed to lead them.

TRUMP: Like Robert F Kennedy Jr he came in and he's going to help make America healthy again [Applause - crowd chants “Bobby”]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began his campaign for president as a pro-abortion Democrat in 2023. He’s now Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services…and will be on Capitol Hill today to testify before the Senate Finance Committee.

While most Democrats oppose Kennedy for his anti-vaccine positions, some Republicans are concerned about where he stands on the sanctity of life. After openly supporting abortion up until birth, Kennedy posted a video last June saying he supports protecting unborn babies after a certain number of weeks, but would oppose total bans.

KENNEDY: More recently I've learned that my assumptions were wrong. Sometimes women abort healthy viable late term fetuses. These cases of purely elective late term abortions are very upsetting. Once the baby is viable outside the womb it should have rights and it deserves society's protection.

But some pro-lifers say Kennedy’s pivot does not qualify him to helm the nation’s health agencies.

CHAPMAN: I think pro-life senators have an obligation to put this stuff on the record and to ask very tough questions…

Tim Chapman is president of Advancing American Freedom…a think tank co-founded by former Vice President Mike Pence. The group is lobbying senators to vote against Kennedy’s nomination. Chapman says he does not trust Kennedy’s recent turn toward conservatism to extend to pro-life policy.

CHAPMAN: I think what you're seeing from Kennedy is a real struggle to get his own views where he's comfortable with them on this issue. Converts are welcome, but we don't need to put somebody who's in the process of trying to figure this out at the top agency dealing with the issue of life.

In recent weeks, Kennedy has reportedly told senators in private meetings that his deputies at HHS will be pro-life. Meanwhile, pro-life organizations like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Life Action have been largely quiet on Kenndy’s credentials. Chapman says that pro-lifers have called him to thank Advancing American Freedom for raising the issue. But they’re hesitant to go up against a Trump nominee.

CHAPMAN: One of the ways that the number of abortions would rise in this administration is if the abortion pill is unfettered and unregulated and is allowed to be used as a backdoor way to infiltrate conservative states who want to be pro-life. People should ask Kennedy that question. What are you going to do to ensure that there are tight regulations around the abortion pill?

Other pro-life advocates say Kennedy is merely the figurehead of Trump’s agenda, and they trust Trump to set pro-life policies. I spoke with Steve Deace, who hosts a conservative talk show on The Blaze:

DEACE: We're getting the best of both worlds. We're getting the most pro-life president of all time resetting us back to where things were before Biden took over. And we're getting RFK Jr. as a proven crusader in an arena that has for too long been overlooked. So I'm ecstatic.

Deace supports many of Kennedy’s positions, including vaccine skepticism. He admits that the former Democrat’s stance on abortion is concerning, but says the bigger picture is reassuring.

DEACE: On the vaccine side, the same people putting the fetal tissue cells in their vaccines are the same vaccine manufacturers that RFK Jr. doesn't trust. Our reasons may not necessarily be the same, but our interests are aligned.

After Kennedy testifies before the Senate Finance Committee today, he will report to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions tomorrow. Pro-life senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama have publicly endorsed him, but other lawmakers are waiting for more pro-life commitments during the hearings.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Washington.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour, with our reporter in Africa, Onize Oduah.

SOUND: [Sound of people fleeing]

ONIZE ODUAH: DRC crisis — We start today in Central Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo where heightened rebel violence in the eastern region has sent millions fleeing.

Gunfire rocked the region’s largest city of Goma on Monday as the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels claimed they captured the city.

M23 is one of the most active rebel groups in the mineral-rich area, though they are only one of more than 100. The group made major gains along the shared border with Rwanda in recent weeks.

Word of Goma’s capture comes after the M23 rebels issued a deadline for the Congolese army to surrender their weapons. When they didn’t, the rebels attacked. The violence has sent people who have been displaced multiple times fleeing again.

Adèle Shimiye joined others traveling six miles from an IDP camp to Goma’s city center.

SHIMIYE: [SWAHILI] We are going to Goma, but I heard that there are bombs in Goma too, so now we don't know where to go.

She says there are also bombs in Goma, so she’s unsure where to go next.

Congolese authorities have accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels to gain political and economic influence in the region.

Therese Kayikwamba Wagner is Congo’s foreign affairs minister.

WAGNER:The signs are clear: Rwanda is preparing to orchestrate open-air carnage with a brutality reminiscent of the darkest hours of our history.

She told the United Nations Security Council over the weekend that Rwanda is planning an open-air carnage that must be stopped.

Kenya has called for an emergency meeting today between the leaders of Rwanda and Congo to discuss the crisis.

France flooding — Next we head to France, where floodwaters submerged buildings and cars in the western city of Rennes over the weekend.

Authorities evacuated more than 400 people due to heavy rainfall from Storm Herminia. It’s the city’s worst flooding in 40 years.

City officials partnered with the Red Cross to house some of the displaced in gymnasiums.

RESIDENT: [FRENCH] It's been a bit of a nightmare for me. What's more, I've lost all my stuff, his stuff too, the duvets too. We've lost everything.

This displaced resident describes the flooding as a nightmare, saying he and his brother lost everything.

Storm Herminia also struck Spain and is threatening to brought strong winds and heavy rainfall to parts of the United Kingdom this week. Another storm battered the U-K, Ireland, and France last week, leaving more than a million people without power.

SOUND: [Drums]

Australia Day — This weekend thousands of Australians joined celebrations to mark the country’s founding.

The Sydney Opera House lit up with traditional paintings to commemorate the annual Australia Day.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also led a citizenship ceremony in the national capital of Canberra.

SOUND: [Protest]

Meanwhile, chanting protesters marched through Sydney as indigenous activists consider the day as “Invasion Day.”

And in Melbourne, thousands of people gathered outside the Victorian Parliament and carried a large Aboriginal flag through the city center.

Carolyn Kell joined the protests.

KELL: Today we are gathering in our thousands to rise and resist and come together to mourn the loss of life and culture but also to celebrate our existence and our resistance as Aboriginal sovereign people of this land.

Protesters also complained about issues surrounding Aboriginal land rights, missing Indigenous women, and high deaths in police custody.

Back in 2023, Australians voted down a referendum that sought to include Indigenous protections and political rights in the constitution.

SOUND: [Dance performance]

China Lunar New Year — We close today in China where Lunar New Year celebrations are underway.

Millions of people traveled home ahead of the holiday—also known as Spring Festival in China.

Railway authorities reported an estimated 510 million travelers while more than 90 million people were expected to fly.

Celebrations also took place across other Asian cities. In Malaysia, a drone show welcomed the holidays in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur while Lion Dance parades already started ahead of the day in Burma’s city of Yangon.

The official Spring Festival holiday season will run until February 4th.

That’s it for this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Oduah in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: You’d think creatures with ravenous appetites wouldn’t have such picky palates, but we’re talking pandas—with diplomatic immunity.

Bao Li and Qing Bao are newcomers to the National Zoo in Washington. The panda diplomats, as they’re called, are thoroughly pandered to.

Yes, I said that.

Mike Maslanka is head of nutrition at the zoo. Audio from NBC:

MASLANKA: Early on in my career when I started here we ran out of bamboo. And that was terrible.

Lesson learned. Because pandas aren’t just picky, they’re porky.

MASLANKA: We’re going to be looking at about let’s say 100 pounds per animal per day.

There’s a specific farm nearby that harvests bamboo four days a week just to keep the Pandambassadors happy. Only the freshest, greenest stems meet panda standards.

These two spend up to 16 hours a day chowing down on all that bamboo, which, let’s be honest, can’t leave much time for embassy work.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 29th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: peace under fire.

Authorities in South Sudan imposed a nationwide dusk to dawn curfew this month, following clashes in the capital city of Juba.

MAST: The rioters were retaliating after video clips appeared on social media, purportedly with images of Sudanese soldiers to the north killing civilians from South Sudan.

It's another clash in one of the world’s longest running conflicts. It resulted more than a decade ago in mostly Christian South Sudan gaining independence from the larger, predominantly Muslim nation known simply as Sudan.

EICHER: Yet, Islamic raiders still cross the border into the country.

But there’s a group of Christian military chaplains—all of them from South Sudan, all of them armed.

Still, they say they are trying to bring the peace of Christ into the conflict. Today we meet a few of them. Men like this, Lino Emmanuel.

LINO: Yeah, we are preaching.

RAMIREZ: While the bullets are flying?

LINO: Yeah! We pray, and we go. Even bullets are coming, we pray, and we go.

MAST: Patrick Henry College journalism student Clay Ramirez met Emmanuel last fall in South Sudan during a chaplain training conference. And he has this story.

CLAY RAMIREZ: Lino Emmanuel recalls when the original civil war broke out in 1983. The North was attempting to impose Sharia law on the South.

LINO: Our enemy from the North has come to destroy our country. Killing people, killing our mothers, our brothers taking everything, even the cow, they can looting, burning all the house. They want to convert us to be a Muslim.

Many of the chaplains were caught up in the violence of the Sudanese civil war as children in the 80s and 90s. They lived in constant fear of air raids, death, and pain.

DICHIEK: At the time, my father was a soldier, and at that time, he was killed by Arab Muslims. South Sudan and those of Khartoum were fighting. And my mother also died.

Twenty-eight-year-old Emanuel Dichiek has served with the chaplaincy corps for just under a decade. He felt his only path in life was to follow his father’s footsteps and fight.

DICHIEK: Muslims are my enemy up to date. Because they killed my father, my uncles, and many peoples.

It was a vicious cycle. The Islamic North would brutalize the South, and the South would retaliate fiercely. By the time the war ended in 2005, about 2 million people had died.

Wes Bentley is the director of Far Reaching Ministries, the organization that runs the chaplaincy training program. Bentley is a former marine. In the late 1990s, he was serving as a missionary in East Africa. One day, a soldier walked into his camp in South Sudan. The soldier said that Arabs from northern Sudan had killed every single member of his family.

BENTLEY: He said, “We recaptured a village from the Islamic north, and when we did, I captured a pregnant Islamic woman.”

The soldier confessed that he had brutally murdered the woman in revenge.

BENTLEY: And, of course, it was quite shocking to hear. And I had to think for a moment. I said, “All I can tell you is that Jesus Christ offers forgiveness for sin and hope.” And he said, “Will you come and share with my soldiers?” And I said yes.

Bentley started the chaplaincy school in 1998 to teach the Sudanese army and people how to win the spiritual battle—not just the physical war.

AUDIO: [Chaplains singing]

The conference brought about 350 chaplains from their various military posts to the program’s castle base in Nimule. There the chaplains ate well, rested, and heard Bible lessons from American pastors. Despite the African heat, for the chaplains this was like a vacation.

On the front lines their job is to preach, plant churches, and spiritually encourage the troops. But they go into battle fully armed.

BENTLEY: You know we're not there to be soldiers. I went there to be a pastor, but the rebels started coming down and killing all the women and children. So when that happened, I realized that we needed to train these men to be able to defend those who cannot defend themselves and protect those who cannot protect themselves.

For Lino, it was simple.

LINO: If I come to you and I say I am going to kill your father and your brother, your children, are you going to allow it? No. Yes, that is what we are doing.

I spoke with dozens of chaplains at the training conference. Almost all had amazing stories from the battlefield. None of them seemed afraid to die for Christ.

Peter Akesh is a senior chaplain with the South Sudanese army.

AKESH: Jesus can command, “Those are mine, bullet!” And the bullet will obey the voice of the Lord.

He said, “Jesus can command, ‘Those are mine, bullet!’ And the bullet will obey the voice of the Lord.” Once, during a battle, he told me, other soldiers in his unit were talking about how the bullets seemed afraid of the chaplains.

AKESH: And I say, yeah, we are slaves for Jesus Christ…

Akesh told me that one time, a piece of shrapnel wounded his wrist and penetrated his uniform. But it stopped at his clerical garment. One of the soldiers told him, “It’s a good thing your garment and collar are bullet-proof.”

AKESH: And I said to them, Yeah!

After that, all the soldiers wanted Bibles.

The young chaplain Diechiek says he changed his perspective after joining the chaplain corps:

DICHIEK: But for the Muslims that are not Christian--up to now, they are different, they are not in Christ. I tried to forgive them. But when I see my life now, a life without family. It is very pain in my heart to forgive the Muslim. Yeah. But I need to forgive but for the sake of the gospel, I can forgive them.

Many of these men joined back up with their military units shortly after I interviewed them. Out of the 560 chaplains Far Reaching Ministries has trained in the last 25 years, 70 have lost their lives in the service to date.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Clay Ramirez in Nimule, South Sudan.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, January 29th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, the future of TikTok.

WORLD Opinions contributor Brad Littlejohn says he’s not so sure about the presidential stay of execution for the Chinese company.

BRAD LITTLEJOHN: As one of his very first actions as President, Donald Trump signed an executive order promising to extend a lifeline to the floundering Chinese company ByteDance: for the next 75 days, he would direct the Department of Justice to hold off on enforcing the ban against TikTok that had gone into effect just the previous day. With his legendary skills as a dealmaker, Trump seems determined to use the ban as a bargaining chip to bring China to the table.

And evidence suggests it’s already working. China, which formerly had insisted that divestment was simply impossible, issued a statement on Monday declaring its fervent belief in the right of companies like ByteDance to decide any questions of corporate acquisition on their own. That said, there are a tangle of legal questions that any buyer would have to navigate first.

The first clause of the EO reads: “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America it is hereby ordered….” But do the Constitution or the laws vest Trump with such authority? While the law did provide for the possibility of a 90-day extension, that would have had to be ordered before the ban went into effect. Now that the ban has gone into effect, any company that hosts TikTok content or facilitates access to the app is technically in violation of federal law and subject to enormous fines—although Trump has directed the Attorney General to withhold prosecution for now.

For conservatives, the situation poses some real conundrums. On the one hand, it is almost unprecedented to restrict access to a media platform used by half of all Americans, and many, like Elon Musk, have trumpeted free speech concerns as a reason to keep the app online.

However, it is critical that TikTok be held accountable to operate according to U.S. laws. Until now, it has been able to operate with impunity despite numerous privacy and consumer welfare violations. It has demonstrated it cares more about the priorities of its Chinese Communist Party owners than the interests of the American people. If TikTok is to remain available to consumers, it must be run by investors who have the United States’ interests at heart. The executive order may succeed in accomplishing that goal.

That said, President Trump is in uncharted waters with this order. The reality is that the terms of the law were very clear. It was passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress, signed by the president into law, and has withstood multiple legal challenges, ending with a rare unanimous Supreme Court verdict that there is no constitutional obstacle to the law.

Elon Musk may tweet about the First Amendment all he wants, but our country should be ruled by courts, not by tweets. Conservatives have often complained about President Joe Biden’s use of executive orders to bypass what he deemed inconvenient acts of Congress and Supreme Court rulings. What’s good for the goose must be good for the gander. It would be dangerous for President Trump to set a precedent of governing by mere fiat.

Whichever way the TikTok situation settles out, it will be critical for conservatives going forward to articulate a principled basis for regulating technology in the American interest. Hand-waving invocations of “free speech” miss the mark by a mile. Even in the very permissive trends of recent First Amendment jurisprudence, courts have always distinguished between “content” limits and restrictions on its “time, place, or manner.”

You can’t yell “Fire” in a crowded theater. You can’t put strip clubs near a preschool. And, to stick closer to the case at hand, you can’t sing at a karaoke bar that’s been shut down for health code violations. American citizens are still free to post expressive content on social media—but they should not be able to do so using a platform that violates our laws with impunity.

I’m Brad Littlejohn.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: organizations and governments are abandoning their DEI programs. But what can be done to prevent similar efforts in the future? And, Christians in law enforcement. One man grapples with his profession after a shooting that changed his life. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great assembly I will bless the Lord.” —Psalms 26:11-12

Go now in grace and peace.

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