House Republican leaders are expected to vote Wednesday on a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok, even as former President Trump appears to undermine efforts to restrict the app.

Fox News Digital has learned that the House of Representatives is expected to take the bill up under suspension of the rules, meaning it bypasses the usual procedural hurdles in exchange for raising the threshold for passage from a simple majority to two-thirds.

The bill passed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee in an unprecedented bipartisan 50-0 vote on Thursday. 

Later that same day, Trump posted on his Truth Social app, ‘If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!’

The measure would ban TikTok from online app stores if its parent company, ByteDance, does not divest from it within 165 days. ByteDance is a Beijing-headquartered tech company that critics say is under the influence of China’s ruling communist party, a claim the company has denied.

But top U.S. officials have warned that TikTok likely gives the Chinese government access to mountains of sensitive American user data, even as the company insists guardrails are in place to prevent that.

Trump’s hesitance about a ban appears to be a shift from his earlier position as president, when he tried to block the app in the U.S. in 2020.

He said in a CNBC interview Monday morning that ‘there’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad’ with TikTok. 

Trump conceded he still believes TikTok is a national security threat but added, ‘[Y]ou have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies, too.’ 

‘When you talk about highly sophisticated companies that you think are American, they are not so American, they deal in China … if China wants anything from them, they will give it, so that’s a national security risk also,’ Trump said.

But Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital brushed off concerns that Trump, as de facto leader of the GOP, could sway House leaders and other members away from their support of the bill.

‘Trump was right about the national security problem posed by TikTok in 2020. And he’s right today that just pushing TikTok users onto Facebook isn’t the answer. That’s why our bill is the right path forward; it surgically removes CCP control and creates an opportunity to put TikTok in better hands,’ one of the bill’s leaders, House China Select Committee Chair Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., told Fox News Digital.

A senior GOP aide told Fox News Digital that a majority of lawmakers are ‘already convicted’ on the issue of TikTok.

‘This is a security threat, and they’re going to do what they can to prevent that. They’ll argue that we’re just asking that it be purchased by [a company in a non-adversarial country], we’re actually not shutting it down. … So, I don’t think a lot of people are necessarily swayed at the moment,’ the senior GOP aide said. ‘[Trump] has been supportive of something like this in the past. I think that people will just kind of roll with that in mind.’

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., two of Trump’s highest-ranking Capitol Hill allies, did not respond when asked for comment on Trump’s criticism of the bill. Both have suggested their support.

When questioned by Sen. Tom Cotton on Monday, national security officials grappled with whether they believe Israel is engaged in the systematic destruction of the Palestinian people. 

During the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s annual Worldwide Threats hearing — which was interrupted several times by protesters demonstrating for a ceasefire between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas — Cotton asked both CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines if Israel was ‘exterminating’ Palestinians in Gaza.

‘Some of our audience members are accusing you of pretty serious conduct,’ Cotton said, referencing the protesters. 

‘I want to give you a chance to respond to what’s been said,’ he continued. ‘Is Israel exterminating the Palestinian people?’

Burns responded: ‘I think there are a lot of innocent civilians in Gaza who are in desperate conditions right now.’ He added that there are also hostages in ‘desperate circumstances.’

When pressed by Cotton, Burns said, ‘No,’ and said he understands Israel’s need to respond to the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. But, he said, ‘I think we also have to be mindful of the enormous toll that this has taken on innocent civilians in Gaza.’

The Arkansas Republican then turned the question toward Haines, asking her opinion. 

‘I really don’t have anything to add to what Director Burns has said,’ she explained, adding that she fully endorsed his response. 

When Cotton asked Burns if Israel was starving children, as protesters claimed, the CIA director said, ‘I think the reality is that there are children who are starving.’

The senator pressed him as to whether this was Israel’s doing, to which Burns didn’t respond. 

‘They’re starving,’ Burns reiterated. 

Cotton then stated for the record that he doesn’t believe Israel or any of the national security witnesses are either ‘exterminating the Palestinian people or starving Palestinian children.’

The senator told Fox News Digital afterward that he was ‘disappointed’ by their answers. 

David Axelrod, once an adviser to former President Barack Obama, criticized former President Donald Trump on Monday for mocking President Biden’s stutter. 

Trump was at a campaign rally in Rome, Georgia over the weekend when he mocked Biden’s State of the Union speech. 

‘Mocking someone’s stutter for laughs is pathetic and small, the stuff of schoolyard bullies not grownups,’ Axelrod wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. ‘Acting like a total jack*** doesn’t make you strong.’

In a clip, Trump is seen impersonating Biden saying he was going to ‘going to bring the country t- t- t- t- together. ‘I’m going to bring it together.’

A transcript of Biden’s SOTU speech revealed he didn’t actually say what Trump alleged was said, The Washington Post reported.

Biden has been public about his life-long struggle with stuttering. While talking about the campaign trail on the debate stage in December 2019, Biden imitated a child he met with a stutter, saying to him, ‘I can’t talk.’

Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders later wrote in a since-deleted tweet, ‘I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I hhhave absolutely no idea what Biden is talking about,’ referring to the debate moment. She clarified in another tweet that she was not mocking people with speech impediments.

Biden responded, ‘I’ve worked my whole life to overcome a stutter. And it’s my great honor to mentor kids who have experienced the same. It’s called empathy. Look it up.’

Former President Donald Trump’s newly installed leadership team at the Republican National Committee on Monday began the process of pushing out dozens of officials, a senior RNC source confirmed to Fox News.

RNC staffers who work in the national party committee’s communications, data, and political departments are being asked to resign, including a handful of senior staff, sources say.

The move came hours after the Trump campaign on Monday took operational control over the RNC.

It comes as the new leadership aims to merge parts of the RNC with the Trump 2024 presidential campaign.

The former president’s picks to serve as RNC chair and co-chair – Trump ally and North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley and daughter-in-law Lara Trump – were unanimously confirmed on Friday by voice votes as the RNC met in general session in Houston, Texas.

Whatley, who was the RNC’s general counsel, succeeded longtime chair Ronna McDaniel, whom Trump picked to steer the national party committee after he won the White House in 2016. Her departure on Friday came after Trump earlier this year repeatedly urged changes at the committee – after lackluster fundraising last year and his opposition to the RNC’s presidential primary debates – which essentially pushed McDaniel out the door.

Trump also installed campaign adviser Chris LaCivita as RNC chief of staff. LaCivita, a longtime Republican strategist and RNC veteran, will continue to keep his role as one of the two top advisers steering Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

‘The RNC today. It’s not going to look the same next week. There’s obviously going to be changes,’ LaCivita told reporters on Friday. But he declined to get into details.

Friday’s RNC meeting came in the same week Trump swept 14 of the 15 GOP primaries and caucuses on Super Tuesday – which moved him much closer to officially locking up the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. 

It also comes just two days after Trump’s last rival for the nomination – former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley – dropped out of the race.

Trump was expected to formally clinch the nomination on Tuesday, as four more states hold primaries and caucuses.

An American diplomatic trip to a World Heritage site in Saudi Arabia was cut short Monday when authorities demanded a Jewish member of the group remove his religious head covering, which he refused to do. 

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) ended a visit to the Diriyah UNESCO World Heritage Site in Riyadh following the incident involving Chair Abraham Cooper, who is also a rabbi.

Saudi authorities had asked Cooper to remove his kippah. The delegation was escorted off the premises after Cooper indicated that as an observant Jew, he couldn’t comply with the request. 

‘No one should be denied access to a heritage site, especially one intended to highlight unity and progress, simply for existing as a Jew,’ Cooper said in a statement. ‘Saudi Arabia is in the midst of encouraging change under its 2030 Vision. However, especially in a time of raging antisemitism, being asked to remove my kippah made it impossible for us from USCIRF to continue our visit.’

‘We note, with particular regret, that this happened to a representative of a U.S. government agency promoting religious freedom,’ he added. ‘USCIRF looks forward to continuing conversations with the Saudi government about how to address the systematic issues that led to this troubling incident.’

USCIRF Vice Chair Davie said the group stands by Cooper and that the incident ‘directly contradicted not only the government’s official narrative of change but also genuine signs of greater religious freedom in the Kingdom that we observed firsthand.’

Saudi-American relations have taken a hit amid U.S. support for Israel over its war with Hamas. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Saudi Embassy in Washington. 

The USCIRF has designated Saudi Arabia a ‘country of particular concern’ every year for more than two decades over its restrictions of religious freedom, including limiting the rights of non-Muslims. 

‘The Saudi government continued to systematically deny non-Muslims the ability to build houses of worship or worship in public,’ USCIRF’s 2023 annual report said. 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., revealed on Monday that he believes former President Donald Trump was right when he sounded the alarm on TikTok and its national security implications. 

‘It was rare for me to say that Donald Trump was right,’ Warner said during a committee hearing on worldwide threats. ‘But Donald Trump was right years ago when he pointed out the enormous national security concerns around TikTok, both in terms of obtaining data, but also think about the percentage – I think there are about 170 million Americans who use TikTok.’

Warner further noted many young Americans even use the social media video app to receive news about current events. According to the senator, China’s potential to funnel propaganda through the app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, ‘is a huge national security issue.’

During his presidency in 2020, Trump signed an executive order to effectively ban the app in the U.S. But the action was blocked by the courts. 

However, the current presidential candidate has appeared to change his tune in 2024. ‘Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it,’ Trump said in a Monday interview. ‘There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it.’

The former president’s reversal comes as the House of Representatives prepares to bring a bill to the floor for a vote that would force TikTok’s owner to either sell the company or see the app banned in the U.S.

Warner expressed optimism about the bill’s fate in the Senate, if it passes the House. ‘It feels like this House bill has momentum,’ he said.

The Chinese social media app TikTok declared war on Congress last week, while claiming it’s not a threat to national security. In a rare example of bipartisanship, that declaration seems to have awakened our leaders to the threat such a powerful, anti-American propaganda tool holds. Now, TikTok executives are worried they’re running out of time.

And they might be right.

TikTok is one of the world’s largest social media apps. It’s owned by China’s ByteDance, which is really like saying that it does the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party. The results are alarming. China manipulates the news our young people see and turns them against America in an outlandish abuse of press freedom. And the app gathers tons of data on them in the process.

It is widely considered a Chinese spy app and is banned from government phones, though the Biden administration (D-Hypocrites) still has a campaign account on TikTok. Congress has been holding hearings on what to do about the app and its dangerous algorithm. The hearings could force the owners to sell it or possibly have it shut down. So, TikTok called on its millions of devoted followers to harass their congresspeople. 

The result wasn’t a typical pressure campaign. Those happen all the time. This was essentially a foreign government pressuring our government to let it continue its anti-American propaganda. TikTok users were warned to, ‘speak up now – before your government strips 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression.’

The wording in the TikTok call to action of course left out how the bill is just forcing the sale on the owners. But when has the genocidal Chinese government cared about facts, rights or law? Pretty much never.

The Washington Post reported that, ‘individual House offices have since received hundreds of calls from TikTok users, at times fielding upward of 20 a minute, according to eight congressional aides.’ 

Congressional offices reported getting many calls from citizens as young as 12 – some even threatening suicide if the app were shut down. Some offices turned over their phones to turn off the onslaught. The BBC summed up the result nicely, ‘Desperate TikTok lobbying effort backfires on Capitol Hill.’

The bill passed the committee 50-0. It is scheduled for a full House vote on Tuesday, March 12. President Joe Biden has also indicated his support. ‘If they pass it, I’ll sign it,’ he said. 

TikTok responded by claiming it has rights. China, for the record, is a Marxist dictatorship that regularly threatens its neighbors with attacks and viciously shuts down even tiny hints of freedom like in Hong Kong. 

‘This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs,’ TikTok said in a statement.

We can hope so.

Recently, TikTok launched a media campaign to push back against congressional efforts. It’s called, ‘TikTok Sparks Good’ and features some of its top creators defending what they are able to do with the platform. Cody and Erika Archie were some of the prominent users who clocked in with their support. The ‘first-generation ranchers from Gatesville, Texas,’ have 1.2 million followers on the app and say that, ‘TikTok is helping us protect this way of life for future generations.’

They seem like nice folks and I can’t blame them for not wanting to lose the platform. But Congress has to look at the bigger picture and the many threats posed by China.

TikTok has more than 1.5 billion users worldwide, which is a terrifying power if misused. It has been blamed for ‘pushing children and young people towards harmful mental health content,’ according to Amnesty International. That includes ‘multiple recommended videos in a single hour romanticizing, normalizing or encouraging suicide.’

Others have tied TikTok to the horrific rise in antisemitism in the West, especially among young people who love the app. Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman said TikTok is the reason for giving people a ‘warped or not reflective of the history’ view of Israel’s war against terrorist Hamas. Even Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ was popular for a time on TikTok.

The version of the app we get here isn’t even allowed in China. Their version urges young people to learn and better themselves, not to waste their days becoming ‘influencers.’

Our leaders have been wrestling with the influence China has on American social media for some time. India solved the problem in 2020 by banning TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps. American politicians have been more divided because of our tradition of free press – even though TikTok’s ultimate bosses don’t believe in the concept. 

Many conservatives, including former President Donald Trump, are concerned about the ban. Trump said he doesn’t want to aid TikTok competitors like Facebook, which often censor conservatives. ‘If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!’ he posted on Truth Social.

Trump is correct about the dangers of other social media. Facebook, YouTube and pre-Elon Musk Twitter all twisted their policies to target the right. But that doesn’t mean a foreign app like TikTok should be allowed to manipulate our politics. On Monday, Trump clarified his comments and explained why he’s backed away from his effort to ban China-owned app.  

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., voiced concerns that people on both sides of the aisle hold. He accused TikTok of ‘targeting American children with Chinese Communist Party propaganda — during school hours — and recruiting minors to act as foreign agents for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).’ 

And that’s the way we need to look at this, big time. TikTok proved to the entire world that it has too much power over Americans with its lobbying effort. No foreign adversary should be allowed to have that level of influence on our politics. 

Our leaders need to tell TikTok, time’s up.

Lara Trump, recently elected co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said the GOP must use ‘legal ballot harvesting’ to stay competitive against Democrats ahead of November. 

‘We’ve been playing checkers, and the Democrats have been playing chess,’ Trump, daughter-in-law to former President Trump, said in a recent interview with the Washington Examiner. ‘Unfortunately, we don’t have one day of voting, we don’t have paper ballots, we don’t have voter ID everywhere. So we have to play the hand that we’re dealt.’ 

She emphasized the importance of early voting and mail-in voting where possible.

‘That way, we have votes banked as we head into Election Day, and we’re not playing catchup on Nov. 5 with the Democrats,’ she said. 

‘We need to be doing legal ballot harvesting – something that has never been done by the RNC, but I can promise you will be a huge part of what we’re planning to do,’ Lara Trump told the Examiner. ‘And then come Election Day, and you’ll see that, I think, it’s not just about having poll watchers. It’s about having trained poll watchers and lawyers at locations around the country as necessary. And these are people who will be trained and able to physically count how many ballots are coming in. And how many ballots are going out.’

Explaining her vision for the RNC after longtime chair Ronna McDaniel stepped down on Friday, Trump said her goal is to ‘have people’s trust restored in our electoral process.’ 

‘Truthfully, people have felt like they don’t know if/when they donate their money to the RNC, it will ultimately go to the causes that they care about,’ Lara Trump said. ‘I hope to be there as someone who will ensure that, indeed, every single dollar donated goes to making sure we win on Election Day – at the top of the ballot and down the ballot.’

The Republican National Committee voted Friday to install Donald Trump’s handpicked leadership team, as the former president closes in on a third straight presidential nomination.

Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican, was elected the party’s new national chairman in a vote Friday morning in Houston. 

Lara Trump, who is married to the former president’s son Eric Trump, was voted in as co-chair.

‘The RNC is going to be the vanguard of a movement that will work tirelessly every single day to elect our nominee, Donald J. Trump, as the 47th president of the United States,’ Whatley told RNC members in a speech after being elected.

Lara Trump is expected to focus largely on fundraising and media appearances. She emphasized that shortly after she was voted in, taking time in her inaugural speech as co-chair to hold up a check for $100,000 that she said had been contributed that day to the party. 

The functional head of the RNC will be Chris LaCivita, who will assume the committee’s chief of staff role while maintaining his job as one of the Trump campaign’s top two advisers.

McDaniel was handpicked by Trump to lead the committee seven years ago, but she fell out of favor with Trump’s MAGA movement following GOP losses over the last few years. She alluded to that in her goodbye speech Friday, telling the members that she worries most about ‘internal cohesion’ heading into the election.

‘We have to stop attacking other Republicans,’ she said. ‘If we spend our time attacking each other, we guarantee the Democrats are going to win.’

She also told the party that it needs to engage independent and swing voters, warning: ‘We don’t win if we only talk to each other.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

House Republican leaders are blasting President Biden’s proposed plan for how to fund the government in fiscal year 2025.

‘The price tag of President Biden’s proposed budget is yet another glaring reminder of this Administration’s insatiable appetite for reckless spending and the Democrats’ disregard for fiscal responsibility. Biden’s budget doesn’t just miss the mark – it is a roadmap to accelerate America’s decline,’ read a joint statement by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R– La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R– La., Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R– Minn., and GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R– N.Y.

‘While hardworking Americans struggle with crushing inflation and mounting national debt, the President would increase their pain to spend trillions of additional taxpayer dollars to advance his left-wing agenda.’

The U.S. national debt is currently just over $34.5 trillion, according to the U.S. Debt Clock.

Biden’s $7.3 trillion budget plan, which he unveiled Monday, includes proposals to hike taxes on corporations and high-income households. It lays out roughly $5 trillion in tax increases overall, which the White House said would be split evenly between corporations and the top 2% of earners.

It also aims to push forward his progressive policies, like dedicating $8 billion over 10 years to the American Climate Corps and $3 billion for the Green Climate Fund, which helps developing countries fight climate change.

The budget proposal also includes $1.8 billion toward boosting development programs in the STEM fields that have an emphasis on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.

The budget is largely symbolic and has virtually no chance of passing the Republican-controlled House. 

However, it is a significant part of the president’s pitch to voters as he seeks to win another term in November.

House Republicans advanced their own budget last week, led by Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, aimed at cutting $14 trillion in federal spending over 10 years by slashing federal benefits and social programs, among other areas. It also aims to reduce taxes and roll back Biden’s green energy subsidies.

Congressional leaders are beginning to discuss the roadmap to funding fiscal year 2025, even as negotiations continue on how to fund the remainder of fiscal year 2024, which began on Oct. 1, 2023.

Disagreements over federal spending have fueled historic levels of division on Capitol Hill. Congress passed half of their 12 spending bills in a massive $460 billion package last week, and the remainder must be funded by March 22 to avoid a partial government shutdown.

Lawyers for former President Trump filed a motion Monday to adjourn the trial stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s charges related to hush money payments until after the Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity. 

The trial in New York City is set to begin on March 25 with jury selection, but the former president and 2024 GOP presumptive nominee’s attorneys are requesting the trial be put on hold. 

‘The Court should adjourn the trial pending Supreme Court review of the scope of the presidential immunity doctrine in Trump v. United States, which is scheduled to be argued before the Supreme Court on April 25, 2024,’ the motion states, adding that it should also be adjourned ‘following an evidentiary hearing outside the presence of the jury, preclude evidence of President Trump’s official acts at trial based on presidential immunity.’ 

The motion comes after Judge Juan Merchan set March 25 for jury selection and announced that the trial is expected to last six weeks.

Bragg indicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in April. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Trump and his attorneys sought to have the case dismissed altogether, but Merchan denied the request last month. 

Bragg alleged Trump ‘repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.’

The charges are related to alleged hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign.

In 2019, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York opted out of charging Trump related to the payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. The Federal Election Commission also tossed its investigation into the matter in 2021.

The motion from Trump’s attorneys comes after the Supreme Court, last week, set April 25 to hear arguments on the issue of presidential immunity. A ruling on the matter is expected in late June. 

The pending question before the high court stemmed from Trump’s appeal following charges out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case. 

By agreeing to hear arguments on the matter, the Supreme Court has paused the Smith trial altogether. That trial was initially expected to begin on March 4 – the day before Super Tuesday. 

Trump and his legal team, in requesting the Supreme Court review the issue of presidential immunity, said that ‘if the prosecution of a President is upheld, such prosecutions will recur and become increasingly common, ushering in destructive cycles of recrimination.’ 

‘Criminal prosecution, with its greater stigma and more severe penalties, imposes a far greater ‘personal vulnerability’ on the President than any civil penalty,’ the request states. ‘The threat of future criminal prosecution by a politically opposed Administration will overshadow every future President’s official acts – especially the most politically controversial decisions.’

Trump’s request states that the president’s ‘political opponents will seek to influence and control his or her decisions via effective extortion or blackmail with the threat, explicit or implicit, of indictment by a future, hostile Administration, for acts that do not warrant any such prosecution.’

Smith charged the former president with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Those charges stemmed from Smith’s investigation into whether Trump was involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and any alleged interference in the 2020 election result.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in August.

This will be the second time this term the Supreme Court will hear a case involving the presumed Republican presidential nominee. 

Last week, the Supreme Court sided unanimously with the GOP frontrunner in his challenge to Colorado’s attempt to kick him off the 2024 primary ballot. 

The high court ruled in favor of Trump’s arguments in the case, which will impact the status of efforts in several other states to remove the likely GOP nominee from their respective ballots. 

The court considered for the first time the meaning and reach of Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars former officeholders who ‘engaged in insurrection’ from holding public office again. Challenges have been filed to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot in over 30 states.

In reacting to that ruling last week, Trump shifted his sights to the issue of presidential immunity. 

‘A great win for America. Very, very important!’ Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview after the ruling. 

‘Equally important for our country will be the decision that they will soon make on immunity for a president – without which, the presidency would be relegated to nothing more than a ceremonial position, which is far from what the founders intended,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘No president would be able to properly and effectively function without complete and total immunity.’ 

He added, ‘Our country would be put at great risk.’