France and Germany have urged their citizens to depart Iran amid an increased risk of military escalation in the Middle East. 

‘Due to the new level reached overnight by Iran and the risk of military escalation, the French embassy recommends to French residents in Iran who have the possibility, depending on the resumption of international air traffic, to leave temporarily the country,’ French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said in a statement issued Sunday. ‘You are asked to exercise the greatest caution when traveling, to avoid any gatherings in the country and to keep yourself informed of the situation.’ 

The statement added that French nationals ‘are recommended to absolutely refrain from traveling to Iran, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.’ 

In a televised interview with France 2, Sejourne said Sunday he asked the foreign ministry to summon the ambassador of Iran on Monday, adding that it was ‘the Iranians who attacked Israel.’ 

France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, meanwhile, asked police to maintain a ‘static and visible presences’ outside synagogues and faith schools ahead of the Jewish holiday of Passover from April 22 to 30, Agence France Presse reported. 

The German airline group Lufthansa, which includes the German flagship carrier as well as Swiss and Austrian airlines, announced on Sunday that it was suspending flights to Amman, Erbil and Tel Aviv until at least Tuesday and flights to Beirut and Tehran until at least Thursday as it continues to evaluate the security situation in the Middle East and maintains close contact with authorities, Reuters reported. Lufthansa already announced Friday it was suspending flights to and from Tehran until at least April 18. 

On Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres issued a statement condemning ‘the serious escalation represented by the large-scale attack launched on Israel by the Islamic Republic of Iran this evening,’ calling for an ‘immediate cessation of these hostilities.’ 

‘I am deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation. I urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East,’ he said. ‘I have repeatedly stressed that neither the region nor the world can afford another war.’ 

Pope Francis on Sunday pleaded with Iran and Israel to ‘for a halt to any action that could fuel a spiral of violence with the risk of dragging the Middle East into an even greater conflict,’ Reuters reported. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to bring a spending package to the House floor this week that will provide wartime aid for Israel after it suffered a drone and missile barrage from Iran over the weekend. The spending package also includes billions for Ukraine and Taiwan.

Johnson, R-La., is facing immense political pressure to clear through his chamber a $95 billion supplemental package that would send support to the U.S. allies, as well as provide humanitarian aid for civilians in Ukraine and Gaza and funding to replenish U.S. weapons provided to Taiwan. However, the GOP maintains only a slim majority in the chamber and Republicans are divided on whether to continue supporting Kyiv, who is defending itself from Russia’s invasion.

Iran’s attack on Israel late Saturday further increased the pressure on Johnson, but it could have given him an outlet to underline the urgency in approving the aid. Johnson told Fox News Channel’s ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ that Republicans ‘understand the necessity of standing with Israel.’

‘The details of that package are being put together right now,’ Johnson said Sunday, adding that he would try to advance the aid bill this week. ‘We’re looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.’

The White House and Senate members are urging Johnson to put a bill already approved by the Senate onto the House floor. The Republican leader could also start fresh with a new bill that has spending levels more favorable to certain members, in an effort to win over their support.

The speaker has expressed support for legislation that would structure some of the funding for Kyiv as loans, pave the way for the U.S. to tap frozen Russian central bank assets and include other policy changes. Johnson has pushed for the Biden administration to lift a pause on approvals for Liquefied Natural Gas exports and has demanded policy changes to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

It is not immediately clear how Johnson would proceed.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a statement Saturday that the House would change its legislative schedule this week to ‘consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable,’ but did not provide additional details on which path Johnson may take.

Johnson’s legislative push this week comes after he traveled to Florida on Friday for an event with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Following the meeting, Trump expressed support for Johnson and said he has a ‘very good relationship’ with him.

‘He and I are 100% united on these big agenda items,’ Johnson added. ‘When you talk about aid to Ukraine, he’s introduced the loan-lease concept, which is a really important one, and I think has a lot of consensus.’

Johnson’s push for aid comes amid pressure from Biden’s White House and the Democrat-controlled Senate.

On Sunday, Biden called congressional leaders and urged them to act quickly to send aid to both Israel and Ukraine.

Following the call, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said there was ‘consensus’ among the participants.

‘The best way to help Israel rebuild its anti-missile and anti-drone capacity is by passing that supplemental immediately. As I said, Israel expended about over a billion dollars in defending itself and the security supplemental would replenish the kind of anti-missile and anti-drone defenses that are in the Arrow, in the David’s Sling, and in the Iron Dome,’ Schumer said at a news conference in New York, ABC News reported.

He added: ‘It’s vital for the future of Ukraine, for Israel and the West.’

The Senate previously passed a bill that includes roughly $60 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel.

The White House said on Sunday’s call, Biden ‘discussed the urgent need for the House of Representatives to pass the national security supplemental as soon as possible.’

‘We didn’t need any reminders in terms of what’s going on in Ukraine,’ White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on NBC. ‘But last night certainly underscores significantly the threat that Israel faces in a very, very tough neighborhood.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Donald Trump has outlined his plans for federal taxation should he be elected.

‘I will make the Trump tax cuts permanent. You know they expire in a year. And we will cut your taxes even more than that,’ he said in a speech in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Feb. 14, 2024. 

Trump made the direction clear. Lower.

But President Biden has also made his plan clear: He wants to wallop Americans with a $5 trillion tax increase. 

Biden’s written plan calls for a small business tax hike, a corporate tax hike, a capital gains and dividends tax hike, income tax hikes, energy tax hikes and even a second Death Tax on top of the first one.

Biden would increase the corporate income tax from today’s 21% to 28%. That’s a higher tax rate than communist China and France and the U.K., each at 25%.

Now add the average state corporate income tax at 4% and the average combined Biden rate would be 32%. That would be the second-highest corporate income tax in the developed world. Just below Colombia.

Households bear the burden of the corporate income tax in the form of higher prices and slower wage growth. Companies do not simply absorb the tax, it is passed on to all of us.

Biden also promises to increase the tax on Subchapter S corporations, partnerships and all ‘pass through’ businesses, most of them small businesses, to 39.6%. These employers pay their taxes through the personal income tax rate, not the corporate rate.

Biden’s budget promises to increase the federal capital gains tax to 44.6%, the highest rate in 100 years.

California businesses would pay the 44.6% federal capital gains tax plus a 14.4% state capital gains tax for a combined rate of 59%. New York state businesses would pay a combined 53.4% on capital gains.

Meanwhile, the developed world average is 18.78%. China’s is 20%.

Under Biden you could work for 40 years, sell your business and the government could take half or more. 

Biden vows to add a second death tax by eliminating stepped-up basis when parents die and pass on homes, land and stock to children.

Biden promises to impose a tax on ‘unrealized gains.’ If your land or stock account has increased in value in the last year you would pay taxes on the unrealized gain. You have not sold the property; you do not have the income. It isn’t ‘real.’ Yet you will be taxed as if you had made the sale and received the income.

Big government politicians have a habit of imposing ‘trickle down taxation,’ where a tax is advertised as only hitting ‘the rich.’ They lie in order to get the tax into law. Once in place, the tax gradually expands to hit the middle class.

Take the federal income tax. When it began in 1913, the top rate was 7%, and it only hit households making more than $15.8 million in today’s dollars. Now the income tax hits nearly half the country and the bottom rate is 10%.

Another example is the ‘Alternative Minimum Tax’ imposed in 1969. It was only supposed to hit 155 high-income households nationwide. But that’s not what happened. The tax gradually expanded to threaten 30 million households by the early 2000s. 

Biden is already using ‘trickle down taxation’ to hit more and more Americans with his stock tax. Biden signed into law a 1% tax on companies that buy their own stock. This tax burden hits all Americans with a 401(k), IRA or union pension. Not even China has such a tax.

But now Biden wants to increase it to 4%: a 400% tax hike in three years. How long until it rises to 5% or 7% or 10%?  

Biden is also giving away America’s tax sovereignty. He has accepted the demand of our European competitors that we set a floor under our corporate income tax rate. Europe knows that Trump has long pushed for a 15% corporate income tax.

But Trump has made it clear he wants to compete with other nations by offering lower taxes on American workers, not by paying American workers lower wages. Biden has endorsed the idea of a government tax cartel, an OPEC for tax rates no lower than 15% and Biden now demands we move that minimum tax to 21%. 

Biden’s budget calls for a tax on energy used for things Biden does not like. Starting with bitcoin mining. Once in place, the list of future targets writes itself: gun manufacturing, gas stove manufacturing, and more.

Speaking of energy taxes, beware a carbon tax in a second Biden term.

Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have all endorsed an energy tax/carbon tax. All but 10 Democrats in the House voted against a resolution opposing a carbon tax this spring.

And all these new Biden taxes will be collected by a supersized and unreformed IRS.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., called on President Biden to take a stronger stance against Iran after his administration reportedly advised Israel not to launch a response after Tehran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at the Jewish state on Saturday.

Kennedy addressed Iran’s attack during an appearance on ‘Fox News Sunday,’ criticizing Biden’s support of Israel as less than ironclad. 

‘In the past 60 days, we have seen President Biden go wobbly in his support of Israel,’ Kennedy said. ‘With respect, go to Amazon and buy a spine online. Peace through weakness never works, not with these hard, armed men.’

Iran launched some 300 drones and missiles from its own territory toward Israel, though the vast majority were intercepted by air defenses.

Israel responded by sending fighter jets to strike multiple Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including a major weapon-manufacturing site. While Israel has yet to announce plans for a large-scale retaliation, The New York Times reported that the Biden administration has advised Israel not to retaliate against Iran.

Kennedy accused Biden of ‘being influenced by the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party’ and called on the president to shore up his support of Israel.

‘The American people may be poor under Biden, but they’re not stupid,’ Kennedy said. ‘We need to stand with Israel.’

Biden has also drawn criticism over his failed attempt to deter Iran from carrying out an attack against Israel. On Friday, Biden said simply, ‘Don’t,’ when reporters asked about his message to Iran ahead of an expected attack against Israel.

Kennedy warned that the U.S. must stand strong against Iran and its surrogates.

‘Israel’s not at war with Hamas or Hezbollah or Yemen,’ the senator said. ‘Those are all surrogates for Iran, they’re prostitutes. The pimp is Iran. Israel is at war with Iran. Iran hates Americans. Iran hates Jews. Iran wants to kill Americans and Jews. And if we turn the other cheek to them, we’re going to get it in the neck.’

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Like all of Joe Lieberman’s family and friends, I have been contending with the news of his sudden passing. To say it was a shock is an understatement. As I join so many in grieving his loss, I am also reflecting on his wonderful life.

He was a deeply principled man, guided by faith, and grounded by family and his sense of duty beyond the political moment. A quiet man with a witty and charming disposition, he was full of kindness and had a steely determination to make sure that we would learn from the mistakes of the past.

To have known Joe is to understand at a base level: There is no Joe without his dear wife, Hadassah. Hadassah and Joe were a wonderful example of a loving couple who cherished each other’s opinion and always had each other’s back. Their children and grandchildren were his North Star.

I’ve read so many accolades since Joe’s passing, from prominent political figures on both sides of the aisle. To see that people, in remembering his life, understood who Joe Lieberman was at his core and to hear every person eulogizing him, regardless of their political stripes, attest to Joe’s character, intellect, and kind disposition has been a great comfort.

As if almost mirroring the closeness of his family in his outer life, Joe brought people together.

Any reasonable analysis of Joe’s political record would show that he was unashamedly a social liberal. As was common in his party at the time, he was always strong on the military and believed in a robust, Scoop Jackson-Ronald Reagan foreign policy. He personally understood that the forces of evil had to be confronted early on and what happens if we don’t – Hadassah’s parents were Holocaust survivors.

Joe Lieberman was Al Gore’s running mate on the 2000 presidential ticket. He came within 537 votes in Florida of being Democratic vice president of the United States. Only a few years later, Joe was Sen. John McCain’s wingman in 2008, breaking with his party to endorse John for president.

I don’t think that would happen in today’s hyper-partisan environment. But it can be explained, in my view, by one event.

Missing from the discussion of Joe’s life and legacy – and what was so evident from our travels together – is how he was deeply affected by Sept. 11, 2001. My small contribution in honoring my dear friend is to point out how committed he was to protecting his nation and his beloved Israel by being strong in the face of evil.

He wholeheartedly supported President Bush’s effort to deal with the extremist regimes in the Mideast, and to go on the offensive when it came to radical Islam.

His decision to support the surge in Iraq was very unpopular among Democrats and the public at large. The Three Amigos – as me, John and Joe came to be known – fully supported President Bush’s efforts as we were losing ground in Iraq.

This put Sen. Lieberman at odds with his party and a majority of Americans. But through that, Joe formed an unshakeable bond with John. And I was fortunate to have been in the presence of two real American heroes, John McCain and Joe Lieberman, who in different ways sacrificed for our country and always put the nation first above any politics.

Sen. Lieberman saw a determination in Sen. McCain to win a war that we could not afford to lose. This reinforced Sen. McCain’s belief that America has to be strong in the face of aggression, not just from radical Islam, but from bad actors like Putin and the Iranian ayatollah. 

Sen. Lieberman later vigorously opposed President Obama’s withdrawal of forces from Iraq and President Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. Joe realized that radical Islam, left unattended, will come back. He knew that it is better to fight them over there than to fight them on our soil. 

Joe also always believed the Iranian ayatollah was the Great Satan. Through his leadership of United Against Nuclear Iran, which he co-founded, he constantly reminded us how the world would change for the worse if the ayatollah had a nuclear weapon.

Sen. Lieberman was guided by these firm principles, and they have informed my views in the Senate. Now, the best thing I can do to honor and remember Joe is to stay in the fight.

I will, to the best of my ability, continue the fight, taking on those on the Left who wish to marginalize the Jewish state and weaken us at home. With equal vigor, I will confront the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, which seems not to understand the threat we face from radical Islam, Putin, Iran and China, and would have us withdraw from the world at our own peril.

My last conversation with Sen. Lieberman was about how impressed I was with the younger generation of Republicans and Democrats who seem to understand that The Squad is off base and that calls to retreat from the world do not make us safer.

I’m glad I had this conversation before Joe passed. I was able to tell him that what he had accomplished and what he was continuing to do was making a difference to younger generations.

What better legacy could one have as a public servant? Rest in peace, my dear Amigo. Until we’re all together again.

Former President Donald Trump is backing Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania – after throwing his support to a different candidate during McCormick’s first run for the Senate two years ago.

‘I am officially giving my endorsement to David McCormick tonight. He’s a good a man. He wants to run a good ship. He’s a smart guy, who was a very successful guy. He’s given up a lot to do this,’ Trump declared on Saturday, as he spoke at a large rally in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.

McCormick, a former hedge fund executive, West Point graduate, Gulf War combat veteran and Treasury Department official in former President George W. Bush’s administration, launched his second Senate bid last year. He’s running unopposed in the crucial battleground state’s April 23 primary and will face off in November against longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr.

‘I’ll tell you what: He’s the nominee of the Republican Party, David McCormick. Go out and vote for him because Casey doesn’t do a damn thing,’ Trump emphasized.

Casey, the son of a popular former governor, served a decade as Pennsylvania’s auditor general and then treasurer before winning election to the Senate in 2006.

The Senate race in Pennsylvania is one of a handful across the country that will likely decide if the Republicans win back the majority in the chamber.

Democrats currently control the U.S. Senate with a 51-49 majority, but Republicans are looking at a favorable Senate map this year, with Democrats defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs. 

Three of those seats are in red states that Trump carried in his 2020 election defeat to President Biden — Ohio, Montana and West Virginia, where Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin is not running for re-election. And Pennsylvania is one of five key general election battlegrounds where the Democrats are defending seats. Democrats may also have to worry about holding the open Senate seat in blue Maryland, where former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan is running.

McCormick was not at Saturday’s rally. His campaign told Fox News the candidate had a previously scheduled family commitment that he made long before Trump recently announced his rally in Schnecksville, which is located in the Lehigh Valley, a highly competitive part of the northeastern swing state.

Following the rally, McCormick thanked Trump for the endorsement in a social media post.

‘Thank you, President Trump,’, he said. ‘Together we will deliver a big win for Pennsylvania and America in November.’

McCormick was part of a crowded and combustible battle for the 2022 GOP nomination. He ended up losing the nomination by a razor-thin margin to celebrity doctor and cardiac surgeon Mehmet Oz, who secured a primary victory thanks to a late endorsement from Trump. Oz ended up losing the general election to Democrat John Fetterman.

‘I don’t know David well, and he may be a nice guy, but he’s not MAGA,’ Trump said of McCormick at the time, as he referred to his legions of Make America Great Again loyalists and supporters.

This time around, McCormick faces no major opposition in the GOP primary. He is backed by longtime Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and the Pennsylvania GOP, and was encouraged to run by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is the party’s Senate campaign arm.

McCormick endorsed Trump early last month after the former president scored major victories in the coast to coast Super Tuesday contests and Nikki Haley – Trump’s last remaining rival for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination – dropped out of the White House race.

Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania is his third this year. He made a Feb. 9 stop in Harrisburg to address NRA members gathered at the group’s Great American Outdoor Show. Days later, he made an unusual stop in Philadelphia at ‘Sneaker Con’ – a major trade show – to hawk new Trump-branded sneakers. 

Pennsylvania is one of six battleground states where Biden narrowly edged Trump in the presidential election four years ago to capture the White House.

Most of the latest public opinion polls in Pennsylvania suggest a close contest between Biden and Trump for the state’s 19 electoral votes.

The president returns to the state where he was born on Tuesday, for three days of events in Pennsylvania, where his political advisers say Biden aims to spotlight his plans to raise taxes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations as he paints contrasts with Trump on economic issues.

Biden kicks off the three-day swing with a speech in Scranton, where he spent part of his childhood. The president has repeatedly returned to the working-class city in northeastern Pennsylvania as he’s made populist pitches to Americans.

The president will head to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, followed by a campaign event Thursday in Philadelphia. Biden’s swing through Pennsylvania will come as Trump makes history as the first current or former president in the nation’s history to go on trial.

Trump’s hush-money trial will get underway Monday in a New York City courtroom.

The former president – who is being tried on 34 state felony charges – is accused of falsifying business records in relation to hush-money payments during the 2016 election he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress.

Trump has repeatedly denied falsifying business records as well as the alleged sexual encounter with Daniels.

China’s ‘infiltration’ of civil discourse in the United States poses an ‘immediate’ threat to Democracy and is one of the ‘greatest threats we face today’ in terms of national security, according to an expert on China. 

TikTok is not just a technological concern, it is not just a social media problem, TikTok is today China’s greatest asymmetric advantage against America,’ Michael Sobolik, author of the new book ‘Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance,’ told Fox News Digital. 

‘It represents the most immediate threat to American democracy that the Chinese Communist Party poses,’ he continued.

China’s role in ‘infiltrating our civil discourse’ through TikTok represents one of the ‘most important problem sets in US-China relations,’ Sobolik explained, because ‘you have about half of America on one app that the Chinese Communist Party controls, and they can manipulate public opinion and spread propaganda.’

‘It’s a huge problem.’

Sobolik, a Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told Fox News Digital that 170 million Americans are on the social media platform with 150 million of them on the site for at least an hour a day. A large chunk of those users, Sobolik said, rely on the platform for news, which the Chinese government is using to its advantage.

The Chinese Communist Party controls TikTok, because TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is domiciled inside of China,’ Sobolik said. ‘As such, they must comply with any requests that they receive from Beijing to turn over U.S. user data, to censor content, or to boost content. They have no recourse of saying no to the CCP. There have already been documented instances of TikTok surveilling U.S. journalists to try to figure out who they were talking to inside of the company. ByteDance has already pledged its cooperation to work with Beijing to hone its algorithm to advance the CCP’s interests.’

Members of Congress have been debating over the past several months whether to ban TikTok in the United States or force the sale of the company to an entity outside of China. Opponents of the bills on the Republican side have argued that banning the popular social media app ‘goes against the First Amendment.’

Sobolik flatly rejected that idea.

‘None of this is a mystery,’ Sobolik said. ‘This is documented. There are instances of TikTok’s censoring content about Tibet, the Uyghurs, Tiananmen Square and other sensitive issues to the Chinese Communist Party. The concerns with TikTok have nothing to do with free speech. The concerns for TikTok are that an adversarial nation controls one of the biggest pillars of information in the United States today. And if you think that’s only a theoretical concern, imagine if China goes to war with Taiwan. And then, as that is happening, floods TikTok with pro-CCP messages, with disinformation about what’s happening, and tries to push a public opinion campaign that America should stay out and not do anything to help Taiwan.’

‘China has one of the strongest abilities to manipulate U.S. public opinion in its grasp today. This should be a chilling reality. This should send a shiver down the spines of every American.’

Sobolik continued, ‘The content you see on TikTok may feel unique to you, but you are being fed content from an algorithm that is controlled by America’s chief adversary. This is a Trojan horse inside of the United States, and it is high past time for members of Congress to take this seriously. To put the country first and to kick this Trojan horse out of America’s walls. We cannot allow this app to continue to function under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.’

‘America has a gun pointed at its head every single day in the information realm. We have to take care of this issue and we must do it now. There are no constitutional concerns of any meaning here. This is a national security concern, and it is one of the greatest concerns that we face today.’

It remains unclear whether Congress has the necessary political appetite to ban or dissolve TikTok, and Sobolik told Fox News Digital that he believes that question is ‘going to be one of the biggest tests for America.’

‘If we can fix this TikTok problem, that will be one of the most encouraging signs that we’ve seen in decades about our seriousness with protecting our liberty and our freedom and for opposing tyranny,’ Sobolik said. ‘If we let this problem go, if we don’t fix it, we may as well go home and get out of the great power competition altogether.

‘Because again, remember, protecting yourself is the bare minimum. Good defense might win NBA basketball championships, but good defense is the bare minimum. It’s good housekeeping. You don’t get a gold star for taking care of your own homeland. You get a gold star for going out in opposing authoritarian regimes. Cold wars are won by seizing the initiative and going on the offensive. If we cannot sever TikTok from CCP control, we have much bigger problems.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a TikTok spokesperson said ‘multiple media outlets have reported’ that ‘there is not a shred of evidence’ to the ‘outlandish claims’ that TikTok is a vessel of the Chinese government.

‘The reality is the ban bill would trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and devastate 7 million small businesses nationwide,’ the spokesperson said.

China’s ‘infiltration’ of civil discourse in the United States poses an ‘immediate’ threat to Democracy and is one of the ‘greatest threats we face today’ in terms of national security, according to an expert on China. 

TikTok is not just a technological concern, it is not just a social media problem, TikTok is today China’s greatest asymmetric advantage against America,’ Michael Sobolik, author of the new book ‘Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance,’ told Fox News Digital. 

‘It represents the most immediate threat to American democracy that the Chinese Communist Party poses,’ he continued.

China’s role in ‘infiltrating our civil discourse’ through TikTok represents one of the ‘most important problem sets in US-China relations,’ Sobolik explained, because ‘you have about half of America on one app that the Chinese Communist Party controls, and they can manipulate public opinion and spread propaganda.’

‘It’s a huge problem.’

Sobolik, a Senior Fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told Fox News Digital that 170 million Americans are on the social media platform with 150 million of them on the site for at least an hour a day. A large chunk of those users, Sobolik said, rely on the platform for news, which the Chinese government is using to its advantage.

The Chinese Communist Party controls TikTok, because TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is domiciled inside of China,’ Sobolik said. ‘As such, they must comply with any requests that they receive from Beijing to turn over U.S. user data, to censor content, or to boost content. They have no recourse of saying no to the CCP. There have already been documented instances of TikTok surveilling U.S. journalists to try to figure out who they were talking to inside of the company. ByteDance has already pledged its cooperation to work with Beijing to hone its algorithm to advance the CCP’s interests.’

Members of Congress have been debating over the past several months whether to ban TikTok in the United States or force the sale of the company to an entity outside of China. Opponents of the bills on the Republican side have argued that banning the popular social media app ‘goes against the First Amendment.’

Sobolik flatly rejected that idea.

‘None of this is a mystery,’ Sobolik said. ‘This is documented. There are instances of TikTok’s censoring content about Tibet, the Uyghurs, Tiananmen Square and other sensitive issues to the Chinese Communist Party. The concerns with TikTok have nothing to do with free speech. The concerns for TikTok are that an adversarial nation controls one of the biggest pillars of information in the United States today. And if you think that’s only a theoretical concern, imagine if China goes to war with Taiwan. And then, as that is happening, floods TikTok with pro-CCP messages, with disinformation about what’s happening, and tries to push a public opinion campaign that America should stay out and not do anything to help Taiwan.’

‘China has one of the strongest abilities to manipulate U.S. public opinion in its grasp today. This should be a chilling reality. This should send a shiver down the spines of every American.’

Sobolik continued, ‘The content you see on TikTok may feel unique to you, but you are being fed content from an algorithm that is controlled by America’s chief adversary. This is a Trojan horse inside of the United States, and it is high past time for members of Congress to take this seriously. To put the country first and to kick this Trojan horse out of America’s walls. We cannot allow this app to continue to function under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.’

‘America has a gun pointed at its head every single day in the information realm. We have to take care of this issue and we must do it now. There are no constitutional concerns of any meaning here. This is a national security concern, and it is one of the greatest concerns that we face today.’

It remains unclear whether Congress has the necessary political appetite to ban or dissolve TikTok, and Sobolik told Fox News Digital that he believes that question is ‘going to be one of the biggest tests for America.’

‘If we can fix this TikTok problem, that will be one of the most encouraging signs that we’ve seen in decades about our seriousness with protecting our liberty and our freedom and for opposing tyranny,’ Sobolik said. ‘If we let this problem go, if we don’t fix it, we may as well go home and get out of the great power competition altogether.

‘Because again, remember, protecting yourself is the bare minimum. Good defense might win NBA basketball championships, but good defense is the bare minimum. It’s good housekeeping. You don’t get a gold star for taking care of your own homeland. You get a gold star for going out in opposing authoritarian regimes. Cold wars are won by seizing the initiative and going on the offensive. If we cannot sever TikTok from CCP control, we have much bigger problems.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a TikTok spokesperson said ‘multiple media outlets have reported’ that ‘there is not a shred of evidence’ to the ‘outlandish claims’ that TikTok is a vessel of the Chinese government.

‘The reality is the ban bill would trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and devastate 7 million small businesses nationwide,’ the spokesperson said.

FOX News Media and eleven other national news organizations released a joint statement Sunday urging the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees to ‘publicly commit’ to general election debates prior to the 2024 election.

‘With the contours of the 2024 general election now coming into clear focus, we – the undersigned national news organizations – urge the presumptive presidential nominees to publicly commit to participating in general election debates before November’s election,’ the news organizations stated in the joint statement. ‘General election debates have a rich tradition in our American democracy, having played a vital role in every presidential election of the past 50 years, dating to 1976. In each of those elections, tens of millions have tuned in to watch the candidates debating side by side, in a competition of ideas for the votes of American citizens.’

‘Since 1988, the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates has sponsored all presidential general election debates. The Commission has previously announced dates, times, and eligibility criteria for 2024 debates. Though it is too early for invitations to be extended to any candidates, it is not too early for candidates who expect to meet the eligibility criteria to publicly state their support for – and their intention to participate in – the Commission’s debates planned for this fall,’ the group of a dozen news organizations continued.

‘If there is one thing Americans can agree on during this polarized time, it is that the stakes of this election are exceptionally high,’ the organizations added. ‘Amidst that backdrop, there is simply no substitute for the candidates debating with each other, and before the American people, their visions for the future of our nation.’

The other news organizations that joined FOX News Media in signing on to the statement include ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, C-SPAN, NBCUniversal News Group, NewsNation Noticias Univision (Univision Network News), NPR, PBS NewsHour and USA TODAY.

The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), which has been responsible for organizing presidential and vice presidential debates in the U.S. for more than 30 years, announced in November the sites and dates for three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate during the 2024 general election.

The scheduled presidential debates are slated to take place at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, on September 16; at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia, on October 1; and at The University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, on October 9.

The sole vice presidential debate is scheduled to take place on September 25 at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

In announcing the debate locations last year, the CPD noted that each debate will begin at 9 p.m. ET and last for 90 minutes without commercial interruption.

Last week, former President Donald Trump’s campaign called for additional 2024 presidential debates and for them to take place ‘much earlier’ than initially proposed by the debate commission. Trump told Fox News Digital that he is ‘totally committed’ to debating President Biden ‘anytime, anywhere, anyplace.’

In a Thursday letter to CPD co-chairs Frank Farenkopf Jr. and Antonia Hernandez, Trump co-campaign managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita told the commission they were writing ‘in agreement with the pending letter,’ reported by The New York Times, ‘from television networks advocating for presidential debates to occur in 2024.’

‘While the Commission on Presidential Debates has already announced three presidential debates and a vice-presidential debate to occur later this year, we are in favor of these debates beginning much earlier,’ they wrote in the letter, which was obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital.

Citing their reasoning for requesting earlier debates, Wiles and LaCivita argued that ‘voting is beginning earlier and earlier, and as we saw in 2020, tens of millions of Americans had already voted by the time of the first debate.’ 

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said it is ‘very important to have the debates now, because the country is doing so badly.’

Last month, following his State of the Union address, Biden was asked whether he would debate Trump ahead of Election Day.

‘Depends on his behavior,’ responded Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

Earlier this year, Biden addressed previous calls for earlier debates with Trump.

‘If I were him, I would want to debate me, too,’ Biden told reporters in Nevada when asked about Trump wanting to debate him earlier in the election cycle. ‘He’s got nothing else to do,’ Biden added.

Though the Biden campaign has not yet committed to any of the scheduled debates, it previously fired back after Trump’s invitation that he would debate the president ‘anytime, anywhere, anyplace.’

‘I know Donald Trump’s thirsty for attention and struggling to expand his appeal beyond the MAGA base — and that’s a conversation we’ll have at the appropriate time in this cycle,’ Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler told Fox News Digital. ‘But if he’s so desperate to see President Biden in prime time, he doesn’t have to wait!’