YouSaid · the spoken record

Ed Markey

lines on the record: 63
first: 2025-12-11
most recent: 2025-12-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Subpoena power we need to ultimately have to almost buy a paper mill for all of the subpoenas we're going to be sending over not just to the Trump administration but to all of those people out there who have been enriching themselves at the expense of the American people”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll tell you what, I think a year from today, we're going to see that we've won the house overwhelmingly and we very well may win the United States Senate. And at that point then be making our judgments about what this movement is and what the message has been that is now winning out there. The Republicans have a big problem in the next four weeks because 22 million Americans are about to lose their health care or see a 50 to 75 percent increase in their healthcare premiums. So they're about to have nitro meat glycerin politically and the Democrats are aligned 100% on that issue to ensure that the Republicans are made accountable for the pain they're about to inflict upon the American people. So that's our job. We have to stay organized. We have to stay focused. And if we do it, I think that the American people next year will resoundingly throw out the Republicans. And then in the House and Senate, give us the...”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Saying, no, we're going to fight for democracy. We're 250 years in, and those, I'll tell you what people want to hear. Those minute men and minute women. Got knocked down, but they got back up and they fought and they won against King George. The abolitionist movement, they got knocked down. They got back up. They fought they won. The suffragette movement. They got knocked down. They were not knocked out. They got up. They fought. They won. The civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr., that whole movement, they were knocked down. They were not knocked out. They got up. They fought. They won. That's where we are right now. We were knocked down, but we're not knocked out. And that's what the no kings movement is all about. That's what the Democratic Party has to be all about. Has to be about that movement.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Year 60 seat victory. So our message is working, but Democrats just have to stand up. They have to fight to make sure that AI is controlled in a way that is compatible with our American political and moral traditions. We have to stand up to ice. We have to make sure that we're not allowing for masked agents to be sweeping people up off the streets the way they did with Romesa Oz Turk and thousands of others across our country on an ongoing basis. We have to show that as a Democratic Party that we understand that we're in a, that Donald Trump is a walking, talking constitutional crisis every day that he's in the Oval Office. And we have to align ourselves with the No King's movement. We have to align ourselves with indivisible. We have to align ourselves with 50-51 and all the other organizations which are out there who are standing up and”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we're fighting on healthcare. We're fighting on these tech issues. We're fighting on environmental, educational issues. We just saw a big return on that, on election day in November of 2025. That exceeded the expectations of all of the experts out there observing what was going on. 13 and 15 point victories in Virginia and in New Jersey. And there's now polling out there at 12 13 points that people are more likely to vote for a Democrat for the House and for the Senate next year. And so that is what I think is going to frighten the Republican Party because that translates into a 60-seat victory for the Democrats next year.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Safeguards for children online. That's my 1998 law, which I'm trying to update up to age 17 and under for families. It has nothing to do though with the age is of people who are willing to step up, invite a lot of young people actually, they're kind of enthralled by the AI industry. They kind of buy into this whole idea that, oh, if there's any regulation at all, you'll be responsible for not finding the cure for cancer. And so they want to be part of this generation. And so what we need is young and old willing to stand up to them. That's what it's all about.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, first of all, it's not your age, it's the age of your ideas, so I'm still the youngest guy on the room. I've introduced the legislation, AI and workers, AI and the environment, AI and social media, AI and civil rights. So I've introduced the legislation. It's not easy to get co-sponsors, by the way. People don't really want to sign up. Young or old, okay? Just so you understand. It has nothing to do with age, has to do with, as I said earlier, a backbone backbone backbone. Are you willing to take on the most powerful, wealthy people in the history of the world? That's what it's all about. And I think that's what the public is getting very, very concerned about. It's that they see a government unable to muster the courage to take on these powerful forces that are basically reshaping our society. And so that's been at the heart of my entire career building in the safeguards from the E-rate to make sure that every kid gets the education they need paid for by the media companies paid for by the communications companies.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're on very dangerous terrain right now with this AI revolution. Very, very dangerous terrain. They don't understand the public revolt which is building against a small coterie of super wealthy people in conjunction with the Trump administration making decisions for 340 million people. They're going to pay a big political price down the line.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Barry clandestine, cozy coterie of people who are very close to the president, who slosh between public policy and private self aggrandizement, who do the bidding of the president, who understands what the agenda is for Trump's children and for the children of others who are inside of the Trump administration in terms of their ability to become fabulously wealthy. And I think everyone understands it. There's an old saying that it's hard to understand something when you're paid not to understand it. That's where we are right now with the Republican leadership. They're paid not to understand it. They can see it on a daily basis. And the revolt has to come from the rank and file. The revolt comes from Audrey Taylor Green. It comes from Marsha Blackburn inside of their own party. And my own belief is that...”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, but what I'm saying is just in terms of what conversations preceded whatever call that is then made by Steve Miller up to the leadership of the House and Senate Republicans. We don't know everything that is going on, but Sachs fits into that profile as well as several other people who work in the White House right now. And it's all part of this kind of very”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm really just trying to draw the connection. The reason that preemption of state AI laws keeps coming back up again is because of whatever is happening in Trump world, right? Like that group of people has this idea that there should not be state level AI laws. And then it keeps showing up in the Congress and you might have to keep voting it down. Can you make that connection more clear for your colleagues, for the American people? Because it is strange that there are shadowy back rooms full of special advisors to the president who might have conflicts of interest getting bills on the floor of the Congress.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Election in the first week of November is highly predictive that that will not be the case in one more year and they should start to get ready in the Republican Party to have a blizzard of subpoenas be sent their way. They're now under a year away from having those subpoenas be sent their way. But yeah, it's frightening what is going on. And at the bottom line, I just see self-enrichment as the core of what the agenda is.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I have not met Damon Sachs. I would have a 50% chance of picking him out of a lineup of two people, so I have absolutely no idea who he is and what he does in the White House, except to the extent to which that eye-opening expose in the New York Times last week laid out what he is doing that enriches himself, enriches Trump's allies is almost indifferent to what the impact might be upon a policy that serves the American people rather than the enriching of a small number of well-connected Americans and overseas allies. So that needs a lot more attention. We're limited in terms of our ability to actually subpoena people as Democrats, the Republicans control the House and Senate, although I would say the”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Architect of that bill we've heard is David Sachs, who is the White House crypto and AI czar. There's a lot of conversation about his investments, about his potential conflicts of interest, just about what kind of character he is inside the Trump administration. The distinction I've been drawing is there's sort of the formal policymaking process, right? There's the front door. There's the FCC and there's Congress and there's bills and committees. And then there's the Trump world, the backdoor, right? Where things happen and don't happen, things are announced on truth social and maybe they're real and maybe they're not. And that's the David Sachs world. Have you interacted with David Sachs? Have you seen how that side of the house is operating and how much has it influencing what Congress is actually doing?”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the Senate floor at like two in the morning on that provision and it passed 99 to 1 on the Senate floor to delete that moratorium on a ban on AI at the state level in terms of new legislation. Right now they're trying to insert that into the defense bill. And my own belief is that God had test us. I think we can put together a coalition here to really raise such a stink about the sacrosanct defense bill that if you try to include a ban on any AI legislation at the state level, that you just might run into a bipartisan coalition that no one has seen on a defense bill in the history of our country.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you're right. Hell was freezing over back in July. When there had been an insertion of an AI moratorium into the one big, beautiful bill coming over from the House that the Republicans really didn't know about it at the rank and file level. But when it came over to the Senate, it was Marjorie Taylor Green and Ed Markey. Yeah, hell's freezing over. Pigs are flying. We're agreeing that that language should not be allowed to pass in the Senate as well. And it was taken out. So there is some recombinant political DNA that is now being created. And I think kind of heartening at a certain level that some Republicans at some level are willing now to stand up to the tech bros and to say, no, we need some safeguards. We need some protections to the extent to which Masha Blackburn is doing it, Marjorie Taylor Green is doing it. We actually then had a boat.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm still awaiting any evidence to convict other Republicans of being guilty of actually standing up for the First Amendment, standing up to fight for the rights of comedians and news gatherers to be able to present the information as they see a fit and not after having received a permission slip from the White House or the FCC.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I was heartened at Santa Cruz, was very critical of the Kimmel, you know, controversy. So I'm hoping that it's bipartisan. I'm hoping that people are willing to stand up and to ensure that the federal communications commission knows that there is bipartisan concern about this censorship that CAR is seeking to impose upon the media. At the same time, I brought out two resolutions onto the Senate floor, one on the Kimmel situation, a resolution condemning it, and a Republican senator got up and objected. Then when the Seth Myers situation unfolded, I brought out a resolution onto the center floor, debated it, then the Republican got up to just object to it even being considered. So while I appreciate the fact that Senator Cruz stepped up,”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we have to act right now in the earlier eras of the introduction of new technologies, the federal government, state and local governments, they moved in. When the automobile was deployed, public policymakers said, you got to have brakes. You got to have airbags. We know what protections have to be built in. It would not inhibit our ability to compete against the Chinese.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Where the power is now concentrated so fully in the hands of those who have great wealth that there is a real danger that we could have an AI revolution be unleashed without the safeguards that we know have to be put in place. Yesterday I did a press conference introducing my AI Civil Rights Act with the civil rights leaders of the United States black caucus members from the House of Representatives, Corey Booker and others talking about the need for us to have a movement of all of those civil rights protections which have been out in the physical world be moved over to AI. Otherwise we're going to see discrimination in housing, in education, in applications for financing, for mortgages all across the board.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This social media industry that right now is unwilling to stand up to the president in any meaningful way. And simultaneously, the most extreme elements amongst that social media industry is coming to Washington and asking for an override of all state legislation across the board on everything that could in fact deal with protection against AI and the environment, AI and its impact on workers, AI and its impact on civil rights, AI and its impact on children. All of it is now subject to a real threat from the Trump administration, from the most extreme elements in the Trump administration. and from the most extreme elements in the AI industry. We're in a real juncture right now.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's all you have to understand. What you're saying is that it's all about power and it's the power of whoever can pay the most to the White House. The AI industry wants state preemption. The AI industry wants preemption of state privacy laws, California, New York, other places. And this administration is without question not interested in the public policy consequences of those kinds of repeals, but they instead are interested in what kind of monetary benefit can flow to the Republican Party at the highest levels because of the capacity of these companies to pay. So there's a reason for us to really be concerned right now. We have an industry.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of the weirder aspects of this FCC Brennan Carr in particular, you mentioned earlier that he used to be a fairly traditional conservative lawyer. And now he's fire-breathing MAGA. He's cutting against some of his own positions from the past. Some of the positions from the first Trump administration that his predecessor Ajit Pai used to take, like disclaiming all authority over state-level net neutrality rules, right? They got rid of net neutrality by saying we actually have no authority over broadband. And now I've seen floated Chairman Carr say, well, we should have authority to preempt state AI regulations because that's part of broadband, which makes no sense in the context of, well, you disclaimed all your authority. How can you possibly now have the authority to narrowly preempt AI regulations? Has this been presented to you in any way that makes coherent sense, or is this just more, let's see how much power we can acquire and use?”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be weaponized by the White House. So I think in terms of the impact on the American people and their ability to receive information unfettered, it's now the same in both sectors. And it's a systematic attack that has been made, unfortunately, successfully by the Trump administration. There are some notable exceptions, I will say, but in general, he's having the intended effect be put into place across the entire media spectrum.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At an earlier period before Trump in order to ensure that there is some protections that are built into these online social media sites. They just give. They're folded. And what's happening over on the traditional broadcast side looks very similar. They are responding in the same way. They're saying we'll pay the fine or we'll accept the chilling effect that you're now creating in terms of our ability to program entertainment or news for the American people. And that chilling effect is impossible to fully quantify, but we know it's real. We know both the broadcasters and the social media companies are now very afraid of what the consequences could be from an out-of-control justice department and an out-of-control federal communications commission that can easily”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I don't think there's too much of a difference, to be honest with you. It's clear they allow themselves to be extorted, the big tech companies. They walk in with presents for Trump into the Oval Office. They pay whatever they are asked to pay and tribute, but they simultaneously then take down. Know the safeguards that were built in.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Brings me to the structural question that I was thinking about earlier. The big tech companies, they have the resources. They're getting ahead of the regulation or the potential for regulation by building the ballroom today, by buying the crypto on the side today. They're the ones who are most able to fight. I think in your estimation, they're also the ones where they most definitely need to be regulated, right? You see a mental health crisis. There needs to be some regulation of these platforms to address that crisis that has some connection in the First Amendment in some meaningful way and they will fight that fight. And they will spend the resources to fight that fight. And thus far they have escaped almost all regulation in this country. On the other hand, you have the media companies who are as weak as they have ever been, who do not have the resources, who are lacking trust from the American consumer in real ways, who do not have the distribution, who depend on the platform's distribution. And Trump is putting pressure on them because they absolutely cannot fight.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tech. Take on where the real problem is. Take on where we have a culture that is undermining the mental health of children, undermining democracy, undermining the very well-being of our whole nation. That they're afraid to do. Because of the cash and carry nature of this administration, where the more money you contribute, the more money you pour into the coffers of Donald Trump, his campaigns, his presidential library is the more likely you escape any scrutiny notwithstanding the magnitude of the danger which you're facing.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Accusatory finger towards social media, not as the exclusive but one of the principal culprits in this crisis that we have in our country. If the Republican Party, if the White House, if Brendan Carr really cared about this issue, we'd be hearing them speak out on it. It's a crisis. We have a mental health crisis amongst teenagers and children in our country right now that goes unaddressed by this administration, by the federal communications commission because of that information. which is being targeted towards young people in our nation. But at the same time, hypocritically, he's very concerned about jokes about the president and the president's eggshell psyche that he cannot bear to have anyone ever criticize him at any time. Grow up, Mr. President. Grow up, Brendan Carr. And by the way, you only need three things to be in politics. Backbone, backbone, and backbone. Take on, baby.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He doesn't want to regulate the internet to protect against the harms which he says are emanating from broadcast TV. So to the extent to which the Republican Party, Brendan Carr, Donald Trump, Shed their crocodile tears about the impact that broadcast television could have upon American society. When it comes to Meta, Google, All those people who were sitting right behind Donald Trump on inauguration day, we've got a crisis in our country. One in four teenage girls contemplated suicide in 2023 in our country. One in eight teenage girls actually attempted suicide in our country in 2023. One in five LGBTQ youth attempted suicide in 2023. And the surgeon general of the United States has pointed out”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Should change how the government regulates it is alien to a young American today as any other idea from the past. Because this is coming over the broadcast airwaves, the government gets to say what it is versus this is coming over my internet pipe and the government has no say. Brendan seems to be totally reversing that and saying, if this is the broadcast airwaves, I have a lot of control over it. And if it's on the internet, I shouldn't have any. That seems untenable, right? Because Americans are largely on the internet. Do you see him trying to regulate the internet as well? Because that's actually the prize.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When I first started covering the FCC 15 years ago I spent a lot of time with Michael Powell, who was a conservative FCC chairman. And what he had been trying to do is unwind the excesses of what you might call the Janet Jackson era of the FCC, right? Justin Timberlake pulls down Janet Jackson's cert at the Super Bowl. The whole government goes crazy. We're going to censor CBS and Viacom, quite a lot happened in that time. In that case, ran for a long time. And what Chairman Powell, I think his former Chairman Powell, when I was talking about it, his point was this is ridiculous, right? The future of media is not on broadcast airwaves or TV stations. The future of media is on the internet. These broadcast companies are just part of the mix with internet content that Americans are getting. And we should deregulate them to let them compete more fairly and even let them get bigger so they can go after the scale of Google and Facebook, which he saw is rising. I would say he was broadly correct, right? The idea that the delivery mechanism of the media”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Legal, and you have kind of in the background, you have a FCC chairman who's nodding his head the whole way. Very, very concerned about your local TV stations whose licenses might be put in jeopardy if you allow that kind of programming to be on TV anymore. So there is a very serious powerful threat to the economic well-being of these companies that they're weighing compared to their First Amendment rights of free speech, telling jokes on television about a president is not illegal and can never be illegal any more than telling jokes about senators can be made to be illegal. That's all part of what they constructed into the First Amendment. That is the protection of our democracy.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The president of the United States and his FCC commissioner would say, we've got to just shut down NBC. We've got to shut down Johnny Carson in the tonight's show. They can't be allowed to do it. So this is a hypersensitive president who believes that he is all-powerful and he has an FCC commissioner who is now suffering from invasion of the body snatchers. He's no longer the Brendan carrot of the previous era, which was kind of a good conservative Republican lawyer. He is now willing to do the bidding of Donald Trump in any way that he wants if Donald Trump is offended. So unfortunately that is a condition that we are going to have to live with. CBS bent the knee in terms of its 60 minutes programming, NBC was threatened by the president saying that jokes by Seth Myers should be illegal.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Obviously, whether it be TikTok, that's 170 million American users, 7 million small businesses, they have a right to be able to think that the government would be able to find a solution so that our national security concerns could be dealt with. And then over on the broadcast area, you have Brendan Carr, who honestly threatened ABC threatened Jimmy Kimmel with almost a godfather part one offer they can't refuse. Either you punish him or the FCC will punish you, ABC. So they responded to that. Now, I'm thinking back to when I was a boy that if Johnny Carson ever told a joke about a president, it would have been unimaginable that the next day.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The outcome was obvious. The goal was obvious. The Supreme Court was asked to rule on it. And it is being unenforced, maybe for political reasons, maybe because we can't get a deal on, maybe because of public opinion on Gaza. On the other hand, you have Brendan Carr, who is taking a bunch of laws that have not been enforced for decades, who is reasserting the authority of the FCC over content in a way that even previous Republican chairs of the FCC walked away from in saying, I have all this authority, I'm going to use it to make sure the speech is correct. How are you interacting with the FCC? How is Congress overseeing the FCC? Is there a sense that his actions are appropriate or need oversight?”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mechanism Have to take a quick break. We'll be back in just a minute. Back, I'm talking with Senator Ed Markey. Before the break, we were talking about all the chaos around the TikTok band, which in turn led me to ask about an even bigger issue in the United States right now. The tendency of the Trump administration, especially FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, to attack media companies in a way that is not at all compatible with the First Amendment. Reason I started there and the reason I said I think”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll be honest, Nehi, it's very hard for me to get inside the internal workings of the cerebral mechanism of MAGA right-wing Republican senators. That's uncharted territory for me. So understanding the totality of all of their thinking and motivations is just impossible for me to dissect beyond the fact that we need free speech. And the only answer to any attacks on free speech is more free speech so that the American people can have the information they need in order to make decisions on important public policy issues. So I don't know the answer to that. I wouldn't rule it out as a motivation then and now, but to be honest with you, I just don't know.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do you think that the public perception of Gaza, the public opinion, has shifted so much that that's why there isn't more pressure to make TikTok divest itself and be sold? That's the dynamic that I'm really asking about. Has public opinion moved so far that fighting that fight on that grounds is no longer politically viable? So we're just not going to enforce the law”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that was the crime that she was being charged with. And she was actually never charged with the crime legally and because of the spotlight I helped to put upon her, they had to release her. But that just re-emphasizes what you're saying about this whole subject of Gaza and how there has been an effort to try to suppress the kind of discussion which we need about what was occurring in Gaza on behalf of Netanyahu and ministers Smatrich and Ben Gabir throughout the entirety of this war. So we have to defend free speech in order to ensure that we have not just on TikTok but everywhere. Ability to have our voices be heard.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Again, I absolutely strongly believe in the robust debate over Gaza. In fact, there was a young woman, Romesa Osturk, who was a graduate student at Tufts University who was whisked off the streets of Tufts University back in the spring and then moved to a prison 100 miles outside of Baton Rouge. And I had to go down and visit her in order to put a spotlight on her. She was a Fulbright scholar working on her PhD thesis, which was going to be the positive uses of social media for children, clearly a real danger to our country. She had co-authored with five other people in op-ed in the Tufts undergraduate newspaper on Gaza.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I want to zoom out and connect this to the selective enforcement of power at the FCC and other agencies because it does all feel like a piece to me. But I just want to ask one more question here. Our young audience is convinced that the reason TikTok got banned was because lawmakers saw how young people were talking about the war in Gaza and how pro-Palestinian they were and anti-Israel's actions in Gaza, which rise to war crimes in some cases it appears, and that the United States government decided to shut that avenue discussion down and that they see that very clearly. Looking back on it, that seems to be what drove a lot of the conversation inside of Congress, even though that was never really revealed to us, that the Chinese government was somehow fomenting anti-Israel sentiment with their algorithm, so we got to ban this app. Have you seen anything else besides that that would lead to a ban? Because that is very much what our audience believes.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Congress is hiding. Afraid of Donald Trump. They pass a law when Joe Biden is president, but once Donald Trump takes over, they're afraid of him. So, again, I voted no on that ban, by the way. So to the extent to which I have been trying to police this issue effectively, it is to get the information which the Congress should have. And unfortunately, that's not what the Republican chairman in the House and Senate are doing. And it comes to me to be writing these letters, to be demanding the answers. But we will not know if the national security of our country is threatened unless and until we actually see the details. And Trump is not sharing that with anyone, except for his business buddies, who he's trying to make happy and even more super wealthy than they already are.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The reason the United States Congress felt comfortable passing a bill that would force the sale of TikTok, effectively banning the app in some way. And the United States Supreme Court felt comfortable saying that law was constitutional, was the national security concerns that you're talking about, right? That the Chinese government controlled an algorithm that would shape what people would see, that they would collect a mass amount of data on the American people that was not transparent. It could not be controlled. And having that in American hands, or at least Allied hands would be safer. That hasn't changed, right? I mean, this is why the law was passed. This is why the Supreme Court upheld the law. The Chinese government in Bytance still have an awful lot of control over the algorithms. Why has that not been a concern for your Republican colleagues? It's just wiped away, or is it just TikTok is too popular to deal with?”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I haven't seen it. I don't know what the details are. I don't know what the safeguards are. I don't know what kind of transparency it will have. I have no idea what the national security implications of it are. So only at the point at which you can actually see the contract, which has been agreed to, would it be possible to do an evaluation? So otherwise, we're just playing fantasy baseball. We're talking about any kind of potential construct that may or may not ever happen. And the only thing we can really deal with is the actual deal that's put on the table for the consideration by the American people and the United States Congress.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the proposals that we've heard floated is that Oracle will take over the data, but the algorithm will get split up and everyone will have to download a new app. TikTok, as we know it, will be shut down. There'll be some new Oracle version of TikTok, Larry Ellison talk, and then that will be what we have. Would that be acceptable to you?”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I have written to the Trump administration. I've asked them for the answers. I have not received any answers from them. So it's still impossible to evaluate the overall quality of the deal, which Trump says that he's got with the Chinese and unless and until all of the details are made public, no one else is going to be able to do that kind of evaluation either.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“are not in any way holding him accountable under that law. Our goal has to be to keep TikTok alive to make sure that it continues to exist, but to also deal with these national security and transparency issues. And until Trump reveals what are the details of the deal, then it's no different than the deal that he says he's going to be able to cut with Ukraine and Russia, and he's very close to a big deal, and yet it never happens. It's an ever disappearing, almost oasis in the long distance. So that's where we are right now. We don't have the details. We don't know. It is possible that we could resolve this. In a way that deals with the issues that revolve around it, and that's what I want. But at the same time, the American people have to know the details in order to ensure that our interests are being protected as well.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Trump is seeking to cut a deal with Oracle and others in order to resolve the issue. What I've done is introducing legislation just to say very clearly, where is the transparency? What are the protections that have been built in in order to protect against a compromise of the information of American citizens? And at the same time, how do we protect our national security? The details are going to be very important in this deal that Trump wants to cut with Oracle. There's actually a deadline and another couple of weeks, the middle of December, in terms of the expiration of the negotiating period. He could extend it again, of course. He's in complete violation of the law to begin with. He doesn't seem to be bound by that.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Trump stayed it. We don't know. He basically told the Department of Justice not to enforce the law. What is going on with TikTok right now? Do you know? Because it feels like a lot of this is wrapped up in, hey, we have this power and we're choosing not to use it. And we have this power that isn't traditionally used this way and we're using it as aggressively as possible.”
2025-12-11 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Sen. Ed Markey wants media companies to fight for the First Amendment · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT