Months ago, President-elect Trump vaguely suggested that those who ‘like TikTok’ should vote for him, raising the hopes for users of the video-sharing app that he might thwart a ban that is soon to take effect.  

‘We’re not doing anything with TikTok, but the other side is going to close it up, so if you like TikTok, go out and vote for Trump,’ Trump said in a September post on his Truth Social service.

He didn’t make any specific promises to reverse the impending ban, but his team says he will ‘deliver.’

‘The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,’ Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance’s transition team, said in a statement.

Working to reverse a ban, which should take effect in January, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden, would be a 180-degree reversal from 2020, when Trump tried to block the app in the U.S. or force its sale. 

Then, in April of this year, Biden signed a similar measure that gave TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, until Jan. 19, 2025 — the day before the inauguration — to sell it or face a U.S. ban.

‘He appreciates the breadth and reach of TikTok, which he used masterfully along with podcasts and new media entrants to win,’ Kellyanne Conway, an adviser close to Trump who now advocates for TikTok, told The Washington Post.

‘There are many ways to hold China to account outside alienating 180 million U.S. users each month. Trump recognized early on that Democrats are the party of bans — gas-powered cars, menthol cigarettes, vapes, plastic straws and TikTok — and to let them own that draconian, anti-personal-choice space.’

The Trump White House could pressure the Republican-led Congress to reverse the TikTok ban. Or, the Justice Department could pursue a policy of loose enforcement of the law. 

TikTok is currently fighting in court to undo the law, arguing that it is unconstitutional. 

The law also allows the president to extend the divestment deadline by 90 days if the administration sees ‘significant progress’ toward a sale. 

The law is enforced by ordering app stores like Apple and Google to stop offering TikTok on their platforms, or be subjected to a fine. 

When it comes to Big Tech, Trump has focused much of his ire on TikTok’s rival, Meta, formerly Facebook. In a March interview with CNBC, Trump said the owner of Facebook and Instagram poses a far bigger threat, labeling Meta an ‘enemy of the people.’

‘Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections,’ he said.

But since then, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has given a number of glowing statements about Trump.

‘Congratulations to President Trump on a decisive victory. We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country. Looking forward to working with you and your administration,’ the tech mogul said after Trump’s win. 

Trump himself has more than 14 million followers on TikTok. ‘For all of those who want to save TikTok in America, vote for Trump. The other side is closing it up, but I’m now a big star on TikTok,’ he declared in September. 

But back on Capitol Hill, the national security threat of TikTok is a top concern for lawmakers of both parties — 197 Republicans and 155 Democrats voted for the bill to force ByteDance to divest. They fear that the Chinese parent company could be harnessing data on U.S. citizens and manipulating the content that users see to be against U.S. interests, charges that TikTok denies. 

But Trump’s Cabinet picks are largely China hawks who have supported the ban. His appointed national security adviser, Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., voted for it. His choice for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that TikTok gives the Chinese government ‘a unique ability to monitor’ U.S. teens and that ‘we must ban this potential spyware before it is too late.’ 

Trump’s nominee for secretary of homeland security, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, was the first governor to ban TikTok on government devices.

Public support for a TikTok ban has tanked in the U.S., with only 32% of Americans backing one, a Pew Research poll found in September. 

President Biden’s U.S. ambassador to Japan and a longtime Democrat operative is considering a run for chair of the Democratic National Committee, two sources in the DNC orbit confirm to Fox News. 

The sources tell Fox News that Rahm Emanuel has been quietly reaching out to DNC committee members as he contemplates a bid to succeed the current chair, Jaime Harrison – whose term is up early next year. Harrison is unlikely to seek a second four-year posting in the wake of last week’s very disappointing election results for the Democrats, up and down the ballot.

Emanuel, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s administration, went on to serve in Congress and steered the DCCC during its very successful 2006 cycle. He later served as former President Obama’s Chief of Staff before winning the 2011 election and 2015 re-election as Chicago mayor. Emanuel has served these past four years as U.S. ambassador to Japan during the Biden administration.

Emanuel appears to have a major advocate in veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod (the political mastermind behind Obama’s 2008 White House victory and 2012 re-election win), who is a friend of his.

‘If they said, ‘Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?’ I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan, and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee,’ Axelrod said on Tuesday during his podcast, ‘Hacks on Tap.’

On Wednesday, Axelrod wrote on X that ‘Dems need a strong and strategic party leader, with broad experience in comms; fundraising and winning elections. One thought I surfaced on @HacksonTap: Ambassador @RahmEmanuel. There may be others but he is kind of sui genesis: Dude knows how to fight and win!’

But it’s far from certain, if Emanuel goes ahead with a bid to chair the DNC, that he would be well received by others.

One DNC insider, who asked to remain anonymous, told Fox News Digital, ‘Rahm is no doubt talented. But we need to know what we need to do to move forward as a party. We need new blood. We need modernization. We need somebody who understands the vastly changed new media landscape, and who is willing to invest in it. Don’t know that Rahm fits the bill for that.’

Another DNC insider, who also asked for anonymity, was much more blunt, arguing in a comment to Fox News Digital that ‘the absolutely last person we need leading us is an arrogant elitist that has never worked a day in his life.’

The news regarding Emanuel was first reported earlier Friday by Axios.

Business tycoon Elon Musk excoriated former National Security Adviser John Bolton after Bolton blasted President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to tap Matt Gaetz as attorney general.

During an appearance on ‘Meet the Press NOW,’ Bolton said the pick ‘must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history.’ 

Musk pushed back in a post on X, calling Bolton ‘a staggeringly dumb warmonger,’ saying that Bolton’s opposition to someone is ‘a great sign!’

‘Gaetz will be great,’ Musk added.

‘Just do the opposite of whatever Bolton recommends,’ Musk wrote in another post, capping his comment off with the face with tears of joy emoji.

Bolton also called Gaetz ‘totally incompetent’ for the position and described him as ‘a person of moral turpitude.’

‘The Senate’s new leadership should tell the President-elect that he is endangering Republican Senators by forcing a vote in favor of Gaetz’s nomination. The leadership should insist that this nomination be withdrawn,’ Bolton declared in a post.

During an appearance on CNN, Bolton indicated that he thinks the Senate should unanimously vote against confirming Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump tapped to serve as director of national intelligence. 

Gaetz ‘issued his resignation letter effective immediately,’ House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday. 

Gaetz had just been re-elected last week. He served in the House of Representatives since 2017.

Bolton also shared his scathing criticism of Gaetz on X, but the former lawmaker responded with a joke, writing, ‘We’ll mark John down as a ‘maybe.”

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., suggested he has gotten more support than publicly known from fellow House Democrats after speaking out about how the party handles dissent within its ranks.

Moulton sparked a progressive firestorm after he made comments to The New York Times expressing concern about transgender student athletes playing alongside biological females. He said most Democrats were afraid to come forward with similar views for fear of retribution.

Progressives at the local, state and federal level condemned the remarks — including House Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., who called them ‘offensive’ on CNN.

‘Look, I understand people have different opinions and different perspectives, and that’s my whole point. The comments were not meant to be offensive, but we… ought to be willing to have a debate. And that’s exactly what I’m willing to do,’ Moulton told Fox News Digital on Thursday.

‘While a few, a handful, maybe just a couple members of Congress have spoken out against the comments, I’ve got an awful lot more who will go up to me privately and say thank you.’

His initial comments, which he has since doubled-down on multiple times, prompted the Democratic Party in his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, to threaten to recruit a challenger against him in 2026.

‘It’s a democracy. If you want to run against me, go for it,’ Moulton told Fox News Digital of the threat, though he added it was ‘not going to be very helpful for winning elections.’

‘What we need to do is defeat Republicans, not fellow Democrats,’ he said.

The party has been busy soul-searching in the days since the Democrats’ devastating performances in the presidential, Senate and House elections.

Moderates like Moulton and Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., have accused the Democratic Party of overly catering to its furthest-left base at the expense of trying to relate to a broader swath of everyday Americans and their issues.

Moulton argued Democratic policies were better for those Americans than Republican policies but suggested the left had a messaging problem because of ‘too much preaching and not enough listening.’

‘People think that this is exactly the kind of debate that we need to have. And it’s not just on trans issues, it’s on the economy. Why are we out of touch with Americans on the economy when Trump’s plan is going to dramatically raise grocery prices… How is it that we’re so out of touch on immigration when we’re the ones who proposed a bipartisan immigration deal?’ Moulton said.

‘It seems like Democrats do have a lot of good solutions for working Americans, and yet we’re really out of touch. So we’ve got to ask ourselves that question. Why have we lost touch with so many people across America?’ 

President-elect Donald Trump sent shock waves through the national security establishment when he nominated Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary.

The plain-speaking former Army National Guard officer would set himself apart from other Defense secretaries with his prolific record of criticism of the institution he has been tapped to run. A culture warrior, on-air commentator and author, the paper trail of his publicly shared views will be on full display in his confirmation hearing.  

‘I’ve been a recovering neocon for six years now,’ Hegseth, a former Fox News host, told the ‘Shawn Ryan Show’ podcast. 

He said he was a huge proponent of the Iraq War ‘at the time,’ but ‘in retrospect, absolutely not.’

‘The hubris of the Pentagon is they want to now tell other countries how to do counterinsurgency based on what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan. The trust that our political leaders and our generals would have our best interests in mind is totally broken,’ he explained. ‘At the same time. I’m fearful of what happens when the institution gets abandoned.’

In a past life, Hegseth ran Vets for Freedom, a pro-Iraq War advocacy group. He then pivoted and became CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a restraint-minded advocacy group that was heavily focused on reforming the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. 

He has not served any senior-level leadership roles at the Defense Department – leaving some hawks skeptical that he has the experience to lead the U.S.’s largest government agency and a fighting force of more than 1.3 million active duty troops. 

‘He is the least well-prepared secretary to be nominated,’ said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. 

‘He has superb military credentials as a junior officer, excellent academic credentials in Harvard, but he has no eye-level national security experience. He has no experience running a large organization, no experience working with Congress, and I mean, a good but very short relationship with the president.’

Prior to his current role, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was head of U.S. Central Command, vice chief of staff of the Army and commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq. After retiring from the armed services, he joined the board of Raytheon. 

Hegseth, a 44-year-old infantry officer in the Minnesota National Guard, served as the platoon leader at Guantanamo Bay. He also led a platoon in Baghdad and later served as a civil-military operations officer in Samarra. 

‘Something that a lot of people will point to as a weakness is he’s young,’ said Steve Bucci, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration. ‘He did serve very effectively as a junior officer and a combat leader, but you know, he hasn’t been part of the institutionalized process going up to be general officer and all the staff positions in between.’ 

‘That will free him to think outside the box,’ Bucci mused. ‘Austin, a four-star, frankly, was not known for new ideas.’ 

‘It’ll drive a lot of people crazy.’ 

Hegseth has made it clear he will work to fight ‘woke’ programs in the Pentagon that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. He has also spoken out against women in combat roles. 

‘I’m straight up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles,’ Hegseth said on the ‘Shawn Ryan Show’ podcast. ‘It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.’

Additionally, in 2019, he successfully lobbied Trump to pardon three service members convicted or accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Trump may have looked ahead to sparing himself the headache this role caused him during his first administration – only Jim Mattis and Mark Esper lasted more than a year, three others served in an acting capacity. 

Hegseth has also called for the firing of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. C.Q. Brown. Brown has become a target of conservatives who claim he advances a ‘woke’ agenda, and Hegseth has suggested Brown, who is Black, is a DEI hire. 

‘That would be a huge problem,’ Cancian predicted. ‘He’s got a very strong military record and, you know, it would put [Hegseth] at war with the military.’

Democrats are expected to hammer him for lack of experience and his background as a co-host of ‘Fox and Friends.’

‘Hegseth is not remotely qualified to be Secretary of Defense,’ Rep. Jason Crow, a national-security-minded Colorado Democrat wrote on X. ‘The SecDef makes life-and-death decisions daily that impact our 2 million troops around the globe. This is not an entry-level job for a TV commentator.’

Hegseth would likely be the first-ever Defense secretary nominee previously barred from a presidential inauguration. Hegseth told Ryan he volunteered in his National Guard capacity to work at President Biden’s inauguration in 2020. However, he said he was one of a number of National Guard members told to ‘stand down.’ 

‘I was deemed an extremist because of a tattoo by my National Guard unit in Washington D.C. and my orders were revoked to guard the Biden inauguration.’

‘My commander called me a day before, tepidly, and was like, Major, you can just stand down. We don’t need you, we’re good. I’m like, what do you mean? Everybody’s there. He said like, no, no ,no…he couldn’t tell me.’

Hegseth said the tattoo is a Jerusalem cross rather than an extremist symbol. It was a popular symbol used during the Crusades. 

‘Twenty years in the military I loved, I fought for, I revered … spit me out,’ Hegseth wrote in his book of the incident. 

Trump’s 2025 election victory was resounding and, it appears, realigning. The Democrats, for their part, are engaging in a rather public autopsy of their misfortune. While almost all claims that a party will be in the wilderness for years to come are exaggerations, there are at least three major mountains in the way of any realignment back in the Democrats’ favor.

First, it must be said that Trump’s triumph and the Democrats’ loss has much to do with the economy. Yes, there were other factors such as immigration, crime and cultural issues. Even so, it was economy that was at the center of this election.

Beyond the polling that indicated it was the number one issue, the following – astonishing – economic fact played no small role:

After the inflation of 2021 through 2023, as reported by GOBankingRates in January, 2024, ‘nearly half of Americans have less than $500 in savings – and almost 60% of Americans have less than $1000 saved up.’

Now combine that with the record credit card debt of many of those same people and there is no other conclusion to be made but that a huge percentage of Americans are living on the margin. They voted their dwindling pocket book over social justice pleas.

Prior to government response to Covid, wages had risen under Trump by 7.1%. Adjusting for inflation, they fell under Biden.

Little wonder over 70% said on Election Day the country was headed in the wrong direction.

As for the mountains the Democrats face, they are as follows:

The modern Democrat party has become the party of government, taxation and regulation. The Green New Deal is a comprehensive example of that.

The Green New Deal legislation is what economists call a government directed ‘industrial policy.’ It seeks to direct enormous government expenditures toward their favored sector of the economy that they want to design.

To realize that, Democrats have imposed regulations that are unprecedented in their scope and reach. That includes openly stating that entire industries should be shutdown, such as coal.

Of course, the Democrats also seek large tax hikes to pay for that program as well. In the last two presidential cycles, the Democrats have openly campaigned on higher taxes. That used to be taboo – at least from Reagan, to Clinton, to the Bush 41and 43 and Obama’s first terms.

The Green New Deal, of course, follows up the last major Democrat legislative victory and huge expansion of government known as Obamacare. That was passed without a single Republican vote.

Just how government-centric are the Democrats?

Well, consider one of their prospects for 2028, California Governor Gavin Newsom. He is a big proponent of Green New Deal policies. Through regulations, he has purported to ban combustion engines for cars and trucks in the next decade among other things.

Recently, Newsom boasted about how California is producing high-paying jobs.

In truth, however, from January of 2022 to June of 2024, California produced only 5,400 private sector jobs. That’s 180 jobs a month for 30 months for a state of over 35 million. By contrast, in that period, government hiring accounted for over 95% of the new jobs in California.

In other words, the party also has become the party of government jobs.

Why were there so few jobs produced in California under Newsom? The simple answer is that California has the highest burden of taxes and regulations of any state in the Union. Nationally, a similar story has taken hold.

In the last decade, the spending by our state, local and federal governments has reached 35% according to Trading Economics. It peaked over 40% during the government response to Covid.

Further, the costs of regulations imposed by our governments is well over $2 trillion all combined. If regulations were its own industry – it would trail only government and healthcare in size.

The societal costs of that spending, the taxes imposed to pay for it and those regulations, has been to limit yearly, average, economic growth to 2% or below. We used to average 4% in the 1950s. It has steadily declined since then as government has grown.

Two percent growth does not and cannot produce enough private sector jobs for a country the size of the United States – plain and simple.

So, it can be no surprise that the rate in growth of government jobs nationwide exceeds private sector jobs growth at this time. Without enough job growth, those on the margin wind up on government programs.

Of course, those government jobs have come at the expense of trillion-dollar deficits and an exploding national debt, which is over $35 trillion as of this writing. All combined, those are sources of inflation which could ignite again if a crisis occurs.

In the final analysis, the size of government and its regulations have reached the point that they are strangling private sector job growth. Promoting more government, the staple of the current Democrat party, is not an option that will produce jobs for voters.

Recently, polling by Scott Rasmussen, in conjunction with The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, found that, among the elites (defined as people having at least one post-graduate degree, earning at least $150,000 annually, and living in high population density areas):

‘70% of the elites trust the government to do the right thing most of the time – more than twice the national average. Among the politically active members of the elites, the figure rises to a stunning 89%.’

That is important to know because that subgroup populates Democrat elites in and out of government.

Historically, once the appetite for such big government, if not socialism, grips a party hierarchy, it doesn’t let go. That is consistent with Labor Party history in England. It is also consistent with the fact that Obama and Hillary Clinton were to the left of Bill Clinton, Biden bragged he was the most progressive ever and Harris was to the left of them all. Meanwhile, Truman and JFK would not recognize any of them.

Those are the three mountains in the way of any Democrat comeback. There are others, but far more American Latinos want jobs than handouts. A growing number of black male voters agree with them.

Of course, if Republicans simply spend money on their favorite special interests, as they have in the past, instead of paring down government, they could hand the Democrats a free pass back into power. For now, however, Democrats have the higher hill to climb.

In what could potentially be President Biden’s last foreign diplomacy trip, he will soon head to South America to meet with global leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Biden will first travel to Lima, Peru, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he is slated to meet with Xi, possibly their final encounter as heads of state, according to a senior administration official.

Biden’s attendance at the summit is expected to be followed by a stop in Brazil early next week, where the Group of 20 summit, a gathering of the nation’s foremost economic powers, is being held. While in Brazil, Biden will also become the first sitting U.S. president to make a visit to spots in the Amazon rainforest.

Biden’s foreign diplomacy curtain call in South America comes as the U.S.’s influence in the region has been getting overshadowed by China’s, experts have argued.

The U.S.’s contemporary policy toward the region has shifted over the last century, from focusing on issues related to the political stability of the region to now on issues of illegal immigration and narcotics and how they impact the country domestically. Meanwhile, China has been taking advantage of the holes left open by the U.S. due to this shift in priorities.

For example, South American countries have turned to China when the U.S. has failed to establish trade agreements with them, the Wall Street Journal reported. Near the start of the Biden administration, Uruguay and Ecuador’s attempts to develop free-trade agreements with the U.S. were stymied, so they turned to China. While Ecuador’s priority is to establish a trade agreement with the U.S., its ambassador said the country is ‘prioritizing alternatives’ while the U.S. transitions to the Trump administration. 

The U.S. still holds more trade agreements in South America than China, but the communist nation has expanded its influence in other ways. Beijing has invested in parts of South America with projects like ports in places such as Peru that trade in Chinese currency, and satellites in Las Lajas, Argentina. China has also established mineral and foodstuff purchases in the region, seen potentially as an effort to fortify resources ahead of any conflict in the South China Sea in light of the increased global tensions surrounding Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., a federal agency that directs investments in developing countries, invested $30 million in funding for a critical mineral mine in Brazil. However, under the investment’s current mandate, all Latin American countries, except Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Haiti, are considered to be too wealthy to benefit from the investment.

Under President-elect Donald Trump, relations with South America could continue to worsen as his threats of tariffs have create concern among global trade leaders.

Biden and Xi’s meeting while in Peru will be the pair’s third in-person meeting since Biden took office. 

According to a senior administration official, the two are expected to discuss a range of issues covering military-to-military communications, human rights, fentanyl, artifical intelligence, climate change, cybersecurity, Taiwan and the incoming Trump administration.

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.