In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. articulated his dream of a society in which Americans would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

There have been major advancements in racial equality since 1963 — the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act, Fair Housing Act, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving decision that struck down bans on interracial marriage. But many progressives have abandoned Dr. King’s dream and substituted a form of discrimination they call “equity,” and they have vastly expanded the size and reach of government.

President Biden has signed executive orders to embed “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) policies into every federal agency.  Instead of ensuring that all Americans have an equal opportunity to succeed, Biden has mobilized the federal bureaucracy to seek equal results based on race, ethnicity and gender.

Congress has taken an important step to restore a focus on equal opportunity by passing the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. That bill abolishes the DEI bureaucracy in the Department of Defense and requires promotions to be based on merit. 

Since a June 2023 Supreme Court decision that significantly limits the use of race status in college admissions, several American companies have begun rolling back their DEI policies. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, confirmed such policy changes on November 25th, 2024.

In a July 2024 poll of likely voters, the Manhattan Institute found that 68 percent believe, “We should focus on creating a color-blind society where everyone is treated equally regardless of the color of their skin.”

In an open letter to President-elect Trump’s Cabinet officials, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Rufo calls for Trump to rescind Obama and Biden executive orders that have advanced DEI and to “sign an order advancing the principle of colorblind equality, stating that the government shall treat all individuals equally according to their merit, rather than unequally according to their ancestry.”

In order to make the executive order a reality across the federal bureaucracy, Rufo urges Trump officials to “swiftly shut down all DEI programs and to terminate the employment of all policy officials responsible for those programs, effective immediately.”  Rufo implemented such a policy as a trustee at New College of Florida, which became the first institution in America to abolish its DEI department.

I expect that President Trump will take the kind of action that Rufo recommends. It’s time to make equal opportunity the gold standard and to say goodbye to DEI.  

Kudos to the incoming Trump administration for its focus on cutting government spending and regulation by bringing Elon Musk, Vivek, Ramaswamy and other dynamic outsiders to the problem, 

dthere was a greater focus on these issues than we’ve seen in a long time. No one is under the illusion that this will be easy, among other obstacles, two stand out. First, while the top line government spending numbers are high, a very large percentage are in the category of entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare, which are seen as a political third rail that President Trump has made clear that he will not cut. Cuts to spending will come from discretionary and defense spending, which, while still substantial, are less than half of the overall federal budget. Second each government program is often backed by a specific legal authorization, and that means that cutting spending will often bring in courts who may stop or delay cuts, and which, more importantly, have backing among special interest groups and in Congress itself, where individual members of Congress and committees are champions of specific programs, assembling congressional support for cuts, even among Republicans who espouse a general fidelity to smaller government, may run up against individual members of Congress with particular interest, regional affiliation and history with specific programs. The new Department of government efficiency, would also do well to recognize the work of scholars of public administration such as Paul light and John diulio and groups who study the inner workings of the federal government, to name only a few lessons that they highlight. First, don’t focus only on cutting the number of government employees. It may seem satisfying to impose caps on the number of government workers, but this ignores the fact that the true size of government is much larger. There is a shadow government of outside contractors and organizations that often carry out the functions of federal government. It would be self defeating to cut government workers only to find that the functions of government are transferred to often more expensive government contractors. Second focus on the functions of government. True cutting of government spending would mean to eliminate or reshape government functions. Otherwise, a cut here will mean that other parts of government take up that function, that courts enforce congressionally authorized functions, or that a reduced agency grows again after cuts, because the core function is still part of its mandate. Third positions in government often spread throughout the government. The creation of a new kind of Assistant Secretary in one department often leads other departments to copy them. The incoming Trump administration has indicated that they know this with respect to positions in government related to dei but they may find that other bureaucratic and administrative functional titles have also spread throughout all the departments. And in general, the administration should consider both cuts and titles in the civil service, but also in politically appointed positions and politically appointed positions that require Senate confirmation. And a few lessons from recent experience. First, consolidation of departments and agencies is difficult. Take, for instance, the creation of the Homeland Security Department after 911 the department brought together agencies that had been in other departments and created new functions as well. But it takes a long time to integrate new functions. Existing agencies simply moved under different department head to not necessarily change or gel well with each other, and the congressional committees that oversee agencies are often jumbled, confused and unhappy with the new arrangement. Consolidation is possible, but it involves many moving parts, so it should be done with eyes open. Second, there is a temptation to send federal government functions to the States while consistent with Republican ideology. This is more difficult than it seems, and can often lead to government programs with one foot in the federal government and another in the States. Sometimes this can lead to both state and federal pressure to increase spending and no clear responsibility for the program, while not impossible, this transferring of functions to the States should proceed with care. If. Third, one area that doe should pursue is the sale of government property and assets, while it is likely not a huge source of income, there has not been a major focus on what the federal government owns with an eye to divesting itself of key properties in many years. But these difficulties and lessons from scholars in history should not deter Doge from being bold in its aim to reduce spending and increase government efficiency. Past efforts such as the Clinton administration’s reinventing government and the Reagan administration’s Grace commission show that there is a need for periodic scrutiny of the way that our federal government operates, the American people will be grateful if the talent and energy of the doge effort lives up to its potential. 

The crisis in Syria, the collapse of the Assad dictatorship and the rise of somebody who has been on the terrorist watch list and has said a ten million bounty on his head, but who now wears western style suit coats and talks like a moderate, is going to pose a real test for how smart the American foreign policy establishment can become. Now, let’s be clear, Syria is a mess. The Assad family, both father and son, killed hundreds of 1000s of people to stay in power, they drove millions into exile. They locked up 1000s and 1000s of people, tortured many of them. They had chemical weapons, which they used in their own people. This was really a nasty dictatorship. He was also the chief ally of Iran, and had funneled money to Hezbollah in Lebanon and helped cripple the Lebanese government, which at one time was probably as functioning a democracy as you had in the Middle East, but under sheer pressure from the Iranians and the Syrians, that process broke down badly. Hezbollah was created on Israel’s northern border, and everything was funneled through Syria to Hezbollah. So from a geopolitical standpoint, the collapse of the Assad dictatorship leaves Hezbollah with no method of getting support from Iran anymore, because that bridge has been destroyed, it also means the Hamas is even further weakened, and I think the Iranians are now looking at their entire empire in collapse. At the same time, the Russians, having gotten so totally invested in trying to conquer Ukraine, had no forces left to send into Syria, and the result was that the Russians, who had also been helpful in sustaining the Assad dictatorship, they left suddenly. Assad, who had been dictator for a long time, his father had been dictator before him, suddenly finds himself in an apartment in Moscow, along with his family, a place that’s much colder than Damascus, and he’s going to find that he’s basically a prisoner guest of the Putin regime. Now, Americans, particularly the foreign policy elite, are going to be tempted to overstate what this all means. They’re going to be tempted to suggest that, if only we intervene cleverly, that we can somehow get a democracy in a place which has had a dictatorship of crushing brutality. You’re going to suggest that the leader of the group that won the fight for Damascus, a man who who’s in terror organization, has been on a terrorist watch list because it was allied with al Qaeda, that somehow he’s matured, and he has playing the media perfectly. He’s talked about the fact, you know, when I was younger, I did a number of bad things, but now that I’ve gotten older and more mature, I realize one has to be realistic. I think personally, that the United States will be very careful about getting involved there. I hope that we will decide that we’ve learned a lesson, a painful, deep, bitter lesson in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and many years ago in Vietnam.

This is not our fight. This is not our job. We can be feel sad for people. We can hope they do better, but we should not send American troops and American money to get in the middle of that mess. We.

Congress appears to have struck a blow against a key cog in the Censorship-Industrial Complex.

Will it foreshadow a concerted effort to deprive that complex of federal coordination and funding under GOP trifecta control?

The blow to the fed-led censorship regime was revealed in a December 6 court filing from the State Department indicating its Global Engagement Center had informed Congress of its plan to shutter and “realign the Center’s staff and funding to other Department offices and bureaus for foreign information manipulation and interference activities.”

The filing came in a case the conservative publications the Daily Wire, The Federalist, and the state of Texas had brought against State alleging that despite claims of its focus on foreign foes, the GEC was also targeting disfavored domestic speech – violating our First Amendment.

As I testified to before the House Small Business Committee back in June, one way in which the GEC did so was through providing grants to and supporting the likes of NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index.

These entities aim to purge purported misinformation and disinformation by destroying the business models of outlets who produce content they deem illegitimate. They do so by creating de facto blacklists for brands to provide ad agencies and ad-tech partners for use in determining where not to advertise – ostensibly providing “brand safety” by preventing their ads from surfacing on toxic outlets. Targeted outlets are therefore deprived of critical ad revenue.

Invariably, conservative and independent media outlets end up smeared and blacklisted as mis- and dis-information purveyors thanks to the biases of the media “risk raters.”

Now the GEC’s stated mission is to counter “foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.”

So, as I testified, by funding entities like these, this foreign-facing agency was perversely aiming to put American media companies out of business.

GEC stymied Congress in its oversight efforts, forcing committees to issue subpoenas compelling it for information about its censorship-by-proxy work.

The House Small Business Committee would later produce a report concluding that the GEC not only “funded, developed, and promoted entities that aim to demonetize news and information outlets because of their lawful speech,” but also funded “develop[ed], then promot[ed] tech start-ups and other small businesses in the disinformation detection space to private sector entities with domestic censorship capabilities.”

The GEC was also an “external stakeholder” in the federal government-coordinated and effectively -originated Election Integrity Partnership. The EIP, representing a sort of outsourced, putatively non-governmental surveillance and censorship organization, scoured hundreds of millions of social media posts during the 2020 election for content disfavored by the government about election processes and outcomes, and collected it from its governmental and non-governmental partners to flag the offending speech for social platforms to remove.

It existed to skirt First Amendment concerns by working with the government but not being housed in the government.

The GEC partnered with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, one of the four partners comprising the EIP.

And it even contributed some of the de facto censorship requests ultimately conveyed to the social media companies via the EIP.

The State Department would later apparently go out of its way to smear those who criticized the GEC’s efforts, including casting Senator-Elect Jim Banks as a Russian stooge.

So some congressional Republicans sought to kill the interagency entity.

The State Department mounted a PR offensive, supported by the political establishment, to defend it.

With the interagency body’s authorization set to terminate on December 23, it was not clear if Congress would extend its life.

But subsequent to the court filing, the Washington Examiner’s Gabe Kaminsky, who had revealed much of the GEC’s censorship work, reported that it would not be extended in the upcoming NDAA – the annual defense bill under which it was initially authorized.

A State Department spokesperson told me that it was “disappointed” but that “the Department remains hopeful that Congress extends this important mandate through other means before the December 24th termination date.”

The potential death of the GEC – assuming it doesn’t just go underground and decentralize – may presage broader GOP efforts to dismantle the censorship regime in coordination with the Trump administration.

The president-elect released a plan two years ago known as his “Free Speech Policy Initiative.”

Under that initiative, Trump said he would, among other things: 

“ban federal agencies…from colluding with any organization, business, or person, to censor, limit, categorize, or impede the lawful speech of American citizens” 

“ban federal money from being used to label domestic speech as ‘mis-‘ or ‘dis-information’.” 

Work to “identify[] and fir[e] every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship—directly or indirectly”

Have the DOJ investigate censorship regime participants for possible violations of myriad laws

Work with Congress to cut funding to third-party censorship regime partners, including NGOs and universities, and create criminal penalties for those who collude with them

And pass a digital bill of rights including a provision ensuring digital due process 

“The fight for Free Speech is a matter of victory or death for America—and for the survival of Western Civilization itself,” the president said, in defending these efforts.

Hopefully the seeming victory over GEC is just the start.

Incoming President Trump is making some amazing nominations for his cabinet, but what he needs in the labor secretary is someone that believes in the free market. When President Biden nominated Julie su to be the secretary of labor in 2023 Senate Republicans opposed her nomination Sue had been a liberal labor secretary in California, where she developed and implemented California’s AB five legislation. AB five effectively banned many independent contractor arrangements and undermined the gig economy. California voters were able to mitigate the harm of that law by passing proposition 22 in 2020 big labor had other ideas. 26 states have passed right to work laws to ensure that workers are not forced to pay dues to a union. The proposed federal pro Act would nullify these state laws and give union officials many new powers. At the same time, it would be much more difficult for workers who don’t want to join a union. There are only three Republicans in Congress who voted, who actually co sponsored the pro act. So it was really surprising to see President elect Trump announce his intentions to nominate one of them, Laurie Chavez de remire, to be his Secretary of Labor. In a November 21 letter to the president elect the national right to work committee, their president, Mark mix and his team detailed the negative ramifications of the pro act mix, pointed out that Chavez de Romero also co sponsored legislation that would force every state and local government in the country to bargain with union bosses who claim to represent government workers. Ironically, these government unions are gearing up to resist President Trump’s attempt to reform this federal bureaucracy. As Biden is preparing to leave office in January, he’s seeking to embed as many of his liberal policies as possible. And as Acting Secretary Julie su Oh, she’s busy implementing that task to the Department of Labor. Oh, they’re expanding government all throughout and all of the Union ideas in Department of Labor, so President Trump will need a committed team to undo Biden’s bad policies and implement his reform ideas. But if President Trump installs a labor secretary with the same views as Julie su How can we expect free market reforms at the Department of Labor. So in his letter to the president elect Trump, Mark mix said in quotes, the next Trump administration should seek to expand choice for workers, so that every American can freely choose whether or not to join a union and with or if a union deserves their financial support. I kind of didn’t say his quote exactly, but it was in quotes. Mix went on to say in now, this is in quotes. Chavez de romere supports policies that go so far in the opposite direction that she would not be out of place in the Biden Harris Department of Labor, which completely sold out to big labor from the from the start, and that’s the end of his quote. President Trump won strong support from working people because they trust him to unleash resources and to get our economy moving again. He needs a labor secretary who shares that vision and is committed to implementing it. I.

The US Constitution gave Congress and Congress alone the power to levy federal taxes. Nevertheless, President elect Trump is promising to hike taxes unilaterally through executive action. The taxes Trump will raise are tariffs, which are the taxes that us, companies and consumers pay on goods made overseas. Under the Constitution, the tariff power belongs to Congress, but Congress, 100 years ago, decided to hand that power over to the executive. Blame the progressives of the early 20th century, they believed that smart, scientific, technocratic government could be better achieved if they gave more power to the bureaucracy and to the executive branch in general, they liked the idea of rule by experts. In this spirit, during the Great Depression, Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt signed the reciprocal Trade Agreements Act. It was an explicitly anti populist measure. Congressman always felt pressure to protect the manufacturers in their own district, but they also saw that protectionist trade policy tends to backfire. So rather than hold their ground against special interests or against the workers of their district, Congress handed control of tariffs over to the president. In the 1970s Congress passed more laws giving the President even more control over tariff rates. Now, Donald Trump is returning to the White House, and Trump believes that tariffs are a good tool for promoting US manufacturing and for exerting pressure on foreign governments. He has this fall, threatened to impose a 10% tariff on all imports from China and a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico. While these tariffs would harm foreign companies, they are still taxes on the Americans who buy foreign goods. Notably, about half of the goods affected by tariffs are not final goods like computers or sneakers, but are raw materials that US manufacturers use to make other things, such as aluminum imported to make dishwashers in US factories, the president shouldn’t have the power to hike taxes on Americans without a vote in Congress. Thankfully, Congress can fix that. Senators Mike Lee and Rand Paul have both introduced bills that would slightly curb the President’s tariff powers by requiring congressional approval before the President can hike tariffs. Democrats spent the 2024 election attacking Trump’s tariff plans as middle class tax increases if they really mean it, Democrats could join forces with senators Lee and Paul to pass one of these bills and put on President Biden’s desk before Trump takes office. That would prevent tax increases on middle class Americans, and it would take power away from Donald Trump, but it would also require Congress to take on some accountability, and that’s the last thing Congress wants do.

we were reminded that on December 7, 1941

on a Sunday morning, at the crack of dawn, Japanese carrier based aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, shocking everybody in America. Now we’ve been surprised before. We’ll be surprised again. Remember 911

when aircraft hit American towers killed 2900 people. We were shocked. It was a surprise. Nobody had planned for it, even though Tom Clancy had written a novel about it. So the danger of being surprised is permanent. Israel, a country which has a long history of being at war, which understands that there are enormous threats. Was totally shocked in October of a year ago, when, in fact,

there was this big surprise attack from Hamas that nobody in Israel thought was possible. So I think we have to recognize that surprise exists. Surprise is real. And I’m frankly, very concerned. I think that the dangers to America today are greater than any time since George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776

I think if you look at China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, the various possibilities, if you look at Islamic terrorists, there are just a whole range of things we have to be prepared for, and we have to approach our national security with the attitude that the world is dangerous, that there are people who would love to destroy us, and that we need American forces and American strength that enables us to survive Despite anything that our opponents throw at us, you should never relax our guard, because the world is dangerous. Surprise does occur. You have to do everything you can to block it, to be aware of it, to stop it, but then you have to be prepared to recover and have enough forces and enough capability that you can come back immediately with enormous strength, and if your opponents are convinced that you have that much strength, then there won’t be a surprise, because they won’t do anything, because they’ll know that it would mean their decisive defeat. But that’s why national security really matters, and that’s why making sure that we reform and develop and, if necessary, overhaul all of our intelligence capabilities and all of our national defense capabilities, is a vital job for the incoming administration. We must have a force capable of, frankly, so impressing our opponents that they don’t attack us. The best way to not be surprised is to make sure that your opponents know that you will retaliate with such ferocity that it’s not worth doing.

I think Pearl Harbor is a very important lesson. It’s a very important thing for Americans to remember, and when you combine it with the tragedies on 911, very different situations, 19 terrorists and one, an entire Japanese Navy on the other, but both shocking surprises. So let’s be prepared. Let’s remind our members of Congress that we need to do what we have to to make sure that America is safe. So.

President Joe Biden’s issuance of an unprecedented blanket pardon, immunizing Hunter Biden for a decade worth of crimes known and unknown, isn’t only disgraceful or norm of iserating It’s part of a continued cover up, transcending the First Family’s criminal national security, imperiling corruption. The Gambit aims not only to put to bed further probing of the Biden family international influence peddling scheme that Hunter evidently bag manned but to divert attention from deep state efforts to shield that scheme from scrutiny and from President Biden’s definitional role in both such efforts, beyond the fact the pardon in size and scope suggests Hunter committed uncharged crimes dating back to Joe’s vice presidency that the outgoing president wants to obscure. The cover up is made clear by the lies and omissions in the President’s statement announcing the pardon. Let’s start with the omissions to read the President’s pardon statement, you’d have no idea that Hunter Biden, who had little experience executing high stakes international business deals, spearheaded family efforts to monetize Joe’s name in office to the tune of $24 million from often government tied sources, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh and Romanian. You’d have no idea that those monies often rolled in via seeming sham transactions and flowed down to Biden family members, including even a grandchild, through nearly two dozen shell companies, all apparently aimed at deceiving those who might follow the money, you’d have no idea that the taxes Hunter evaded came from these ill gotten earnings. You’d have no idea that Hunter has never made the government fully whole for unpaid taxes since while his CIA protected sugar brother, Kevin Morris covered Hunter’s tax tab from 2016 to 2019 authorities let him dodge taxes on the income earned from scandal plague Ukrainian energy company Burisma, beginning in 2014 that’s the first year covered by the pardon to read the pardon statement, you’d have no idea that the feds let the statutes of limitation lapse on the tax charges associated with the Burisma period. You’d have no idea that in connection with operating the family business and during the period covered by the pardon Hunter, allegedly also engaged in bribery money wandering Farah violations and human trafficking, but the prosecutors left these alleged offenses uncharged. You’d have no idea that prosecutors rushed to concoct a sweetheart, global immunity Get Out of Jail Free card of a plea deal akin to Biden’s ultimate pardon, only after IRS whistleblowers came forward with allegations that their colleagues, including at DOJ, were tanking the case, nor that the plea deal ultimately fell apart because the prosecutors themselves could not defend it under Basic questioning from a federal judge, the omissions underpin Joe Biden’s lies, big and small. In the pardon statement, the president claims that Hunter was selectively and unfairly prosecuted by his own justice department. Mind you, yet beyond the fact federal courts dismissed this nonsensical argument as the omissions illustrate, if anything, Hunter Biden was selectively and unfairly protected from investigation and prosecution, the Fed sabotaged and subverted efforts to pursue Hunter left uncharged and let statues of limitations lapse on myriad serious offenses and only sprung to bring cases that are removed from the Biden family international influence peddling scheme and Joe Biden when forced to to save face with the IRS whistleblowers coming forward to detail the Skulduggery. Relatedly, the president maintains that Hunter evaded taxes because of serious addictions, which should have led to a noncriminal resolution. Yet as District Judge Mark scarsi, who presides over the tax case, road in a scathing rebuke, Hunter admitted that he evaded taxes at times while sober and flush with cash, the IRS, whistleblowers have disputed the idea that similarly situated offenders would get off without criminal charges. Similarly, President Biden dishonestly maintains that a sweetheart plea deal, his DOJ, again, could not defend quote, would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of hunters cases. Last but not least among Biden’s lies is his claim that for my entire career, I’ve followed a simple principle, just tell the American people the truth beyond the dishonesty that has marked every aspect of Biden’s career, perhaps his biggest lies have concerned the pardon misconduct. Biden lied about his knowledge of and involvement in the Biden international influence business to get elected president and undermine an impeachment inquiry. Then he lied when he said he would never pardon his son for cases arising from our probe, in large part touching on the influence peddling the lame ducks. Lies and omissions distract us from very live questions like, what related crimes have gone unproved and uncharged? Who else was culpable in the crimes and our cover ups, and to what extent are they currently exposed to the detriment of US national security at this very moment, to what degree are the Biden family’s dealings in the federal officials efforts to shield those dealing from the light of day looming over or influencing current policy with respect to the Ukraine, Russia and China, what leverage do implicated foreign powers have over us? How tainted are associated officials within the bureaucracy? Has a damage assessment ever been done? What steps have been taken in response to it?

Separately? Are there plans to identify and sanction all investigators and prosecutors involved?

Involved in covering up the Biden family’s efforts was the deep state’s knowledge of the Biden family’s dealings used as leverage over them. How, if at all, is that impacting policy? Joe Biden’s pardon is meant to bury these questions. Instead, it should revive demands for answers to them. I.

In 2020, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States recommended to President Trump that the social media app TikTok be divested from its Chinese-controlled parent company, ByteDance, due to national security concerns. President Trump affirmed that recommendation by issuing an Executive Order but several courts ruled that he overstepped his executive authority.

In 2024, strong bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress passed legislation banning foreign adversaries like China from controlling media platforms in the United States. The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee – Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner said, “We are united in our concern about the national security threat posed by TikTok – a platform with enormous power to influence and divide Americans whose parent company ByteDance remains legally required to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP].”

Since ByteDance is controlled by the CCP, China effectively controls the algorithm that feeds users videos and they have access to the private data of millions of Americans. Congressman Michael Waltz, President-elect Trump’s designee to be National Security Advisor, has said, “We should not allow our greatest adversary to access 150 million Americans and their data.”

Karoline Leavitt, who will serve as President Trump’s press secretary, has expressed concern about the CCP’s control over content disseminated on TikTok. “They are pushing algorithms that are very damaging to the intellectual curiosity and to the ideology of young Americans today,” Leavitt said last December.

The legislation passed by Congress and signed into law in April 2024 gives ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, a deadline that will be reached in January 2025, and could be extended into President Trump’s next term.

Major American companies and prominent financial leaders have expressed an interest in purchasing TikTok from ByteDance, so that can be done without any disruption to the millions of Americans who use the social media app.

Nonetheless, the CCP is objecting to the requirement that ByteDance relinquish its ownership of TikTok. ByteDance and some prominent American investors are

waging a campaign to persuade President-elect Trump to exempt them from the requirement to sell TikTok.

ByteDance and their advocates argue that the requirement infringes on free speech, but that argument misses the mark. When he took his Executive Action, President Trump recognized that we should not allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information. Nor should we allow the CCP to indoctrinate young Americans with their harmful ideology.

You’ve probably already read or heard a lot about all the different things that are wrong with various people that President Trump has nominated. A lot of this, frankly, is to be expected. It is, after all, a very liberal news media. They hated Trump, they didn’t want Trump to win. They did everything they could to prop up Kamala Harris, and now they’re doing everything they can to make life harder for President Trump, and frankly,

he’s sort of taunting them. I think some of his nominations are people that he knows are going to cause a lot of flack, but he also thinks that it’s important to put a flag down that he’s for real change. Now, my favorite example of that is cash Patel. I’ve known cash for a number of years. Back in the Trump White House, I watched him during the years in which Trump was not in office. And he’s a very tough guy. He’s very, very smart, but he’s very tough, and he has said very strong things. So naturally, you know, if you’re a left winger and your son are being told we’re going to hold you accountable, you might think, ooh, this is a guy I don’t want to see in charge of the FBI. On the other hand,

we’ve had some senior FBI retirees say, you know, he’s exactly who we need, because the FBI is out of control. Has some very serious problems, and we need a guy tough enough to take on the bureaucracy and to make a change. So that’s going to become, I think, a pretty tough continuing fight. And it’s typical of President Trump. He is not going to back down. He’s named his person. Has every right as a president to recommend who he wants in his government. Now that doesn’t mean he gets them all. Remember, under our constitutional system, the Senate gets to advise and consent on these kind of things, and if the Senate finds somebody that they think is unacceptable,

they just won’t vote for him, and that’s part of what happened to Congressman Gates, who was the first really controversial person named to be attorney general, and after a week, it was obvious that there were enough senators who were going to vote no that he had no hope, and so his name was withdrawn. But I don’t think that bothered President Trump, because he already had in the former attorney general of Florida, Pam Bondi, a really intelligent, smart, hard, working and very experienced attorney general that he could nominate almost immediately to stay back on offense. So you’re going to see some of this, and you’re going to see different senators raise different issues. Pete hegseth is probably the most controversial current nominee, and that’s partly because there are a lot of stuff coming out, rumors and innuendos and accusations about his private life and some things coming out about his management skills. On the other hand, the senators who have met with hexa have said, you know, he’s very impressive, and he’s very committed to a strong American military, and we think he would do a great job. So I think even the most controversial current nominee may well get accepted by the Senate.