Breaking News
Breaking News
from Washington and beyond

Oracle Will “Retrain” Your TikTok Algorithm Under Shady Trump Deal

Conservative billionaires with a clear agenda are about to control your TikTok algorithm.

Oracle logo is displayed on a smartphone in front of a TikTok background
Algi Febri Sugita/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

President Trump plans to “save” TikTok by handing it over to America’s oligarchs. 

A senior White House official confirmed Monday that ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, plans to move an 80 percent stake of its company to America’s richest, most powerful men. ByteDance will create a separate, American copy of its infamous algorithm to lease to a new group spearheaded by Marc Andreessen’s Andreessen Horowitz, Larry Ellison’s Oracle, and the private equity firm Silver Lake. Ellison and Oracle will then control U.S. user data and be able to shape the algorithm as they see fit. 

“The algorithm will be retrained from the ground up and protected by Oracle to ensure Americans’ data is safeguarded and foreign influence is removed,” a senior official told Fox News.

Trump, who has floated banning and saving TikTok multiple times now, has given the men 120 days to finalize a deal. On Sunday, the president also confirmed that Dell Technologies’ Michael Dell and conservative media moguls Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch will also likely be involved in the deal.

The involvement of conservative billionaires and technocrats in the deal has raised valid concerns over the future of free speech. Conservatives are on the record blaming TikTok, for example, for the fact that the overwhelming majority of young Americans are opposed to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Writing for Bari Weiss’s Zionist news site The Free Press, former Republican representative and current Palantir “head of defense” Mike Gallagher outright blamed TikTok’s algorithm for making young people “support Hamas.”    

Gallagher isn’t alone. In fact, his position is identical to the rest of the GOP’s.

“Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature. If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts,” Senator Mitt Romney said during a panel in May of last year. “So I’d note that’s of real interest, and the president will get the chance to make action in that regard.”

Now, that algorithm—and your data— will be retrained and refiltered by Oracle and by Ellison, who has a very close relationship with the Israel Defense Forces and believes that “there is no greater honor” than supporting Israel.

Trump Uses Charlie Kirk Memorial to Air His Own Grievances

Donald Trump spent more time talking about himself than the late far-right activist.

Donald Trump puckers his lips and holds his hands out to the side as he walks on stage at Charlie Kirk's memorial service
Win McNamee/Getty Images

Charlie Kirk’s memorial was apparently just another opportunity for the president to espouse his typical talking points.

The Sunday service intended to honor Kirk’s legacy featured his family, friends, and crucial members of the Trump administration, from Vice President JD Vance to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Speaking before an arena of mourners, some of the country’s most high-profile Republicans painted Kirk as a martyr for the conservative movement, who they credited with transforming contemporary American youth politics.

But Donald Trump’s turn behind the lectern was a remarkable divergence from the lineup. While the president used some of his time allotment to heap praise onto Kirk, he also leveraged the name and memory of one of the GOP’s biggest firebrands to bolster his typical diatribe.

For more than 40 minutes, Trump lamented over late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, aired the supposed success of his economic tariff plan, damned the rate of autism in America, and even negated the message of Kirk’s widow by promising to enact more political violence and retribution against his administration’s perceived enemies.

“Just like Charlie and Erika made Turning Point hot, we are looking at a country that has a chance to attain a level like never before—tariffs are making us rich again, richer than anybody ever thought was possible,” Trump said. “And the only ones challenging them are people that hate our country, or foreign countries that are paying a price.”

“The election was big, but the tariffs—because of the election—came in.”

Trump also used some of his air time to talk about his planned deployment of the National Guard to Chicago, promising the stadium that he would bring the hard fist of the White House to several of the country’s biggest cities.

“I’m so proud of Washington, D.C., and now we’re going to Memphis, and we’ll get that one straightened out fast, and then we’re going into some others, but we’re going to go do Chicago, and we’re going to have Charlie very much in mind when we go into Chicago,” Trump told the roaring crowd.

Trump Digs in on Bizarre, Chilling Demand to Pam Bondi

Donald Trump openly asked Pam Bondi to target people he doesn’t like.

Donald Trump raises his fist while walking outside the White House
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

President Donald Trump doubled down Monday on his threat to send Attorney General Pam Bondi after his political enemies.

Speaking to the press on Air Force One, Trump was asked whom he wanted Attorney General Pam Bondi to “focus” on prosecuting.

“Everybody, really,” Trump said.

“There are a lot of crooked people that were here before me. And people that almost destroyed our country,” he said. “If I didn’t win this election, our country would be destroyed.”

But Trump had no problem naming names in a Truth Social post Saturday addressed to Bondi, pressuring the attorney general to get to work prosecuting his political enemies, or risk “killing our reputation and credibility.”

“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia? ? ? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,’” he wrote.

Trump also celebrated the resignation of Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, whom Trump officials had pressured to seek an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Investigators have yet to produce a shred of evidence that James falsified bank documents to secure favorable terms on a mortgage for her Virginia home. Two Trump stooges, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte and Ed Martin, the head of the DOJ’s Working Weaponization Group, reportedly urged Siebert to seek an indictment against James at Trump’s direction. When federal prosecutors declined, Pulte reportedly encouraged Trump to fire Siebert and have him replaced with someone else. On Friday, Trump was ready to drop the ax.

Trump called Siebert “A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job” in his Saturday post and claimed that he’d had Siebert fired.

“Lindsey is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot,” Trump continued. He later reposted this rant, clarifying that he was writing about Lindsey Halligan, his personal attorney who now serves as special assistant to the president. Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney suggested that Trump hoped to replace Siebert with Halligan to pursue his supposedly “GREAT case” against James.

Maggie Cleary, a new addition to the Justice Department’s Criminal Division who claims to have been wrongly accused of participating in the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, has been named acting head of the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Stephen Miller’s Charlie Kirk Tribute Was as Sinister as It Gets

Donald Trump’s adviser used the Charlie Kirk memorial to warn of the “wickedness” of “our enemies.”

Stephen Miller gives a speech at Charlie Kirk's memorial in front of a large screen that says Turning Point Action.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, delivered a deranged speech at the Sunday memorial service for Charlie Kirk in Arizona.

MAGA “patriots,” Miller claimed, have inherited a civilizing mission from their ancestors. To continue this mission, save humanity, and continue the legacy of Kirk, he said, they must vanquish the “forces of darkness,” their political opponents.

At the beginning of his remarks, Miller said Kirk’s widow, Erika, reminds him of a “famous expression”: “The storm whispers to the warrior that, ‘You cannot withstand my strength.’ And the warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’”

“Erika is the storm,” Miller declared. “We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion.

“Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello,” Miller continued. “Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry,” he said, pulling “us out of the caves and the darkness into the light.

“We built the world that we inhabit now, generation by generation, and we will defend this world,” he later added.

Addressing “the forces of wickedness and evil,” Miller said: “You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.

“You have no idea the dragon you have awakened,” he warned, as the MAGA movement will strive to “save this civilization, to save the West, to save this republic, because our children are strong, and our grandchildren will be strong, and our children’s children’s children will be strong. And what will you leave behind? Nothing, nothing.”

The speech was consistent with Miller’s white nationalist sympathies, penchant for unhinged rants against his political enemies, and apparent mission to use Kirk’s murder as a pretext for broader crackdowns. Last week, he vowed to avenge Kirk’s death by “go[ing] after the left-leaning organizations” that, he claimed, “are promoting violence in this country.”

Trump Shits All Over Message of Charlie Kirk’s Widow at His Memorial

Donald Trump gave an ominous message to America at Charlie Kirk’s memorial—guaranteeing more political violence to come.

Donald Trump and Erika Kirk at Charlie Kirk's memorial
Win McNamee/Getty Images

President Trump took the stage at Charlie Kirk’s memorial Sunday evening to promise more political violence and retribution against his enemies moments after Kirk’s wife, Erika, promised to forgive them. Both received similar applause. 

“In a private moment on his dying day, we find everything we need to know about who Charlie Kirk truly was,” Trump said at the podium. “He was a missionary with a noble spirit, and a great, great purpose. He did not hate his opponents, he wanted the best for them.”  

Then Trump went off script, turning the speech into something better suited for a campaign rally than a memorial. 

“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent. And I don’t want the best for them, I’m sorry,” he said as the crowd roared with laughter. “I am sorry Erika. But now Erika can talk to me and the whole group, and maybe they can convince me that that’s not right. But I can’t stand my opponent.” 

Trump was referencing the slight 180 that Erika Kirk has done in her messaging since her husband’s killing. Initially, she claimed that “the evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done.… If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you have just unleashed across this entire country.”

This messaging fit in snugly with the other calls for war and revolution against the left from people like Elon Musk and Steve Bannon. But on Sunday, Erika Kirk made a point to emphasize that she forgave Tyler Robinson, her husband’s suspected assassin. 

“My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life.… On the cross, our savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do.’ That young man. I forgive him,” she said, evoking the actions of Jesus, while he took his dying breaths, in the Bible. 

Trump made it clear that he saw no value in that, and the crowd ate it up. Asking the president to embody Christlike qualities of forgiveness sounds like an insurmountable task, even for Erika Kirk.