ETF Summary

Chinese social media app TikTok should ‘absolutely’ be banned in the U.S. as the platform’s potential to spread China’s propaganda and steal Americans’ data remains a national security concern, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said Sunday.

Warner, a Senate Intelligence Committee chair, appeared on ABC’s ‘This Week’ and said that the U.S. ‘should be concerned’ about its relationship with China because the two countries are in ‘enormous competition’ with each other.

‘National security is not simply about guns and ships and tanks anymore,’ Warner said. ‘It’s about technology competition.’

The Virginia senator said that 100 million Americans use TikTok for an average of 90 minutes per day, adding that their data is ‘residing in China no matter what TikTok says.’

‘TikTok can be used as a propaganda mechanism for the Community Party of China,’ Warner said. ‘That, I believe, is a national security concern.’

While Warner said he believed the app, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, should ‘absolutely’ be banned in the U.S., the platform should not be singled out as more foreign technology will emerge in the future.

‘What we need, though, is a rules-based approach that doesn’t simply single out a single application because it was Huawei, the Chinese telecom company earlier, TikTok today, there will be other technology applications.’

Meanwhile, TikTok is continuing its campaign to convince Western countries that it is not funneling users’ data to the Chinese government.

TikTok recently hired the corporate and political consulting firm, SKDK, which worked for President Biden’s campaign in 2020, according to reports.

Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi  and Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy denied rumors he was planning a run for the White House in 2024. 

When asked if he has considered running for president, Murphy told CBS ‘Face the Nation’ host Margaret Brennan, ‘I have 1,000%, behind President Biden.’ 

‘And I haven’t really looked beyond that he certainly is going to run. He deserves to run. He’s earned that right. I think he’s had a great run here. And I’m gonna be 1,000% behind him.’

Brennan pointed to a profile piece published Saturday in the New York Times titled, ‘A Trip to Ukraine. A Jab at Ron DeSantis. What Is Phil Murphy Up To?’

‘It’s a very good question,’ Murphy said Sunday. ‘I’m incredibly honored to serve as the governor of New Jersey, we inherited a state that was basically a train wreck, and we got elected to fix it and got reelected to continue to fix it. That is job number one, period full stop. I’m a former U.S. ambassador, which in my case was the Federal Republic of Germany. And therefore the international stuff is – continues to be important to us. New Jersey is one of the most international American states. So direct investment relations abroad matter a lot. I’m honored to chair the National Governors Association, as well as the Democratic Governors Association. So we have a few balls in the air, but New Jersey is job number one.’ 

On Saturday, Murphy, along with former Vice President Mike Pence, was slated to speak at the annual Gridiron Club dinner, which the Times categorized as ‘a famously irreverent white-tie-and-tails roast that draws Washington’s top journalists and political insiders.’ 

Brennan also asked the Garden State’s governor why Biden has not formally announced his candidacy for 2024. 

‘I’m not sure I’ve got any insight information on that,’ Murphy said. ‘I don’t think historically that he’s necessarily out of line when other incumbents have announced reelection. I know, we’re all sort of expecting it’s next week, next month, whatever it might be. My guess is it’s sooner than later. But that’s something that the president himself will decide.’

On other issues, Murphy said he was ‘concerned, but not panicked’ about Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

‘Depositors and workers in the companies whose deposits are in that bank need to be job number one,’ Murphy said. ‘We’ve got a big innovation economy in New Jersey, so we’ve spent the weekend trying to make sure we’re out ahead of this. We don’t have a whole lot of exposure to SVB, per se, but we do have a lot of tech companies. So our Economic Development Authority is preparing a package largely focused on liquidity to be there in case we need to be there. So concerned is you have to be when you have a bank of this size go down. But I don’t think there’s any need to panic. And I’m certain that the authorities at the federal level are working feverishly to come up with some sort of a solution sooner than later.’

The governor was also grilled on his decision to expand AP African American Studies in a perceived dig at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis despite the course’s potentially ‘flawed academics.’

‘Do we believe in teaching our whole history? The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, nothing but the truth? The answer affirmatively is yes. So in this case, AP African American Studies, New Jersey has one high school teaching it this year, we’re expanding it to 26 next year,’ Murphy said, accusing DeSantis ‘just trying to divide us.’ 

‘The fact of the matter is, it must be taught. And you do have latitude in terms of constructing that curriculum at the district level. And that’s what we’re going to do in New Jersey.’

The city of Denver is demanding the Church of Cannabis remove a statue that its co-founder says represents religious freedom and is used by its weed-smoking congregants for meditation.

‘I hope the city of Denver recognizes our right to exist and our right to have this religious effigy, this representation of the freedom of religion that all Americans should have,’ International Church of Cannabis co-founder Steve Berke told Fox News. ‘Yet the city of Denver is really encapsulating the perfect example of big government passing unnecessary laws that don’t protect anyone and infringing on our First Amendment rights.’

The effigy at the center of the feud between the city and the smokers is called Public Defender, an eleven-foot pink android sculpture that sits in front of the church. The city has said the church must remove the sculpture because it is an encroachment on the public right of way and that neighbors sent in complaints, but the church says the artwork is central to its religion.

A city inspector reviewed the sculpture in September the day after its installation and didn’t immediately raise any issues, according to Berke. Months later, in February, the city demanded the church must apply for a permit within 10 days to keep the statue in place. 

CHURCH OF CANNABIS CO-FOUNDER SAYS LOCAL GOVERNMENT IS TARGETING CONGREGATION. WATCH:

‘Ten days is not enough time to receive a land use survey and engineers study all the things that we need to apply for a permit,’ Berke said. ‘So the city basically gave us a deadline that was impossible to meet.’

The city later said a permit wouldn’t be approved even if the Church of Cannabis applied because ‘the sculpture as installed does not meet minimum placement, height, and vehicle sight line criteria of the Encroachment Rules & Regulations,’ according to an email the city sent to Berke. 

The church’s neighbors have also complained that the statue blocks visibility at the corner, a Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure official told Fox News.

‘The sculpture was a gift from the artist because he wanted us to have something that defended our right to religious liberty, which we thought was amazing because we’ve been under attack for pretty much most of the time we’ve existed,’ Berke said.

Berke maintains the church’s fight to keep the statue is a fight for religious freedom.

Church of Cannabis’ congregants regularly gather around the sculpture for a 42-second meditation reflecting on how to achieve a better version of self, an important ritual for the church, Berke told Fox News. The church, whose members are called elevationists and whose only religious tenet is the golden rule, is rated as one of the top attractions in Denver, according to Tripadvisor.

Berke said the marijuana church stimulates the local economy and brings thousands of tourists to the area as well as surrounding shops and restaurants.

‘We’ve renovated a 125-year-old church that was an eyesore and made it gorgeous and a number one attraction as a tourist attraction in Denver,’ he said.

Colorado, where the governor and both U.S. senators are Democrats, was one of the first states to legalize recreational marijuana. Magic mushrooms were decriminalized in Denver in 2019 and across the Centennial State in 2022.

‘So you’d think liberal city, liberal government, they’d welcome this cool new religion that is welcoming and bringing local people to the neighborhood and stimulating the economy,’ Berke told Fox News. ‘You’d think they’d love us, but they don’t.’

‘We’re showing people that if you fight for your First Amendment rights, you are defending your American liberty,’ he continued. ‘And that’s a really important thing, even in left-leaning cities and states.’

To watch the full interview with Berke, click here. 

The three announced Republican 2024 presidential candidates weighed in over the weekend on the shocking collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Former President Donald Trump’s campaign blamed the Biden administration’s ‘anti-America policies’ as former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy sounded off against a possible taxpayer bailout.

SVB, which had been the 16th-largest bank in the U.S., based in Santa Clara, California, collapsed last week and is now under the control of federal regulators.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) only insures deposits up to $250,000, and some investors are saying a government bailout is necessary to protect depositors. Deposits that are insured by FDIC are supposed to be available by Monday morning, sparking fears that a run of withdrawals will create a domino effect.

Some liberals blamed Trump for signing a bipartisan bill in 2018 that rolled back elements of Dodd-Frank, prompting his campaign to fire back. (Dodd–Frank is a 2010 federal law that reformed financial regulation in the wake of the Great Recession.)

‘Out-of-control Democrats and the Biden administration have pathetically continued to try to blame President Trump for their failures with desperate lies, such as the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) spy balloons, the train derailment in East Palestine and now the collapse of SVB,’ Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital.

‘This is nothing more than a sad attempt to gaslight the public to evade responsibility,’ he said. ‘The fact is that Biden has presided over a catastrophic economy that has devastated everyday Americans and has caused misery across the country due to his anti-America policies.’

Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said a corporate bailout should be off the table.

‘Taxpayers should absolutely not bail out Silicon Valley Bank,’ she tweeted. ‘Private investors can purchase the bank and its assets. It is not the responsibility of the American taxpayer to step in. The era of big government and corporate bailouts must end.’

Ramaswamy, who founded Roivant Sciences and Strive Asset Management, argued that SVB should be allowed to ‘fully fail’ and the FDIC should increase its guarantee level to prevent a bank run on Monday.

‘If you want to prevent a run on other banks, increase the FDIC guarantee,’ he tweeted. ‘But SVB screwed up by utterly failing to take interest rate risk into account, in two ways – both in terms of client concentration risk amongst startups and investing in interest rate-sensitive securities. So did the many startups who blithely did business with them. It’s not the U.S. taxpayer’s job to now coddle them.’

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that the federal government will not bail out SVB but will help to try to meet the ‘needs’ of depositors who stand to lose millions after the bank collapsed last week.

‘We’re not going to do that again,’ Yellen said, referring to bailouts. ‘But we are concerned about depositors, and we’re focused on trying to meet their needs.’

‘I’ve been working all weekend with our banking regulators to design appropriate policies to address this situation,’ she said. ‘I can’t really provide further details at this time, but I really want to emphasize that the American banking system is really safe and well capitalized. It’s resilient.’

SVB did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Sunday that President Biden’s nearly $7 trillion budget proposal took his ‘breath away’ and belongs in the ‘shredder’ rather than saddling the American taxpayer.

‘The president’s budget took my breath away,’ Kennedy told ‘Fox News Sunday.’

‘His numbers are extraordinary,’ he said. ‘We’re going to run out of digits here. It’s a $6.9 trillion budget, $4.7 trillion in new taxes that will affect everyone over 10 years, $18 trillion in new debt, a cut to defense.’

Biden unveiled his proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 on Thursday, and some projections say it would result in almost $5 trillion in tax hikes on corporations and wealthy Americans and lead to increased costs for everyone. 

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warns the budget would result in the country’s debt rising from 98% of GDP at the end of 2023 to 106% by 2027 and then 110% by 2033.

According to their analysis, despite some attempts at deficit reduction, nominal debt would nearly double, growing from $24.6 trillion to $43.6 trillion over the next decade.

‘The only way I know how to improve the president’s budget is with a shredder,’ Kennedy said Sunday.

‘The president says that his budget will solve our financial problems in Medicare and Social Security,’ he said. ‘That’s not true. Anything seems possible when you don’t know what you’re talking about. The Wall Street Journal just reported that the president’s budget will add $11 trillion in a financial shortfall to Social Security and Medicare.’

‘If you want to talk savings, well, stop sending checks to dead people,’ he said. ‘We spend about a billion to 2 billion every year to send money to dead people, the checks are being cashed. It’s obviously fraud. The president’s plan to have the American people pay for student debt costs $400 billion over 10 years, we already had a plan to repay student debt, it’s called a job.’

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

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Saturday that history will hold former President Donald Trump ‘accountable’ for his handling of the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

‘President Trump was wrong,’ Pence said at the annual white-tie Gridiron Dinner in Washington. ‘I had no right to overturn the election.’

Pence said the former president’s ‘reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.’

Pence’s remarks Saturday marked his most forceful condemnation of his former boss yet, further fueling speculation he is readying a 2024 presidential run.

After his reelection defeat to President Joe Biden in 2020, Trump told supporters that Pence had the constitutional authority to overturn Biden’s victory as he presided over the ceremonial Electoral College vote. Pence said he did not have that authority, and he certified the election following the Jan. 6 riot.

While the former president has blasted his former running-mate as lacking courage, Pence has largely refrained from taking direct shots at Trump, but that changed Saturday night.

‘I read that some of those classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago were actually stuck in the president’s Bible,’ Pence joked. ‘Which proves he had absolutely no idea they were there.’

Pence joked that Trump used to make him sing the lyrics, ‘Did you ever know that you’re my hero,’ during their weekly lunches to boost his ego.

The Trump campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for a reaction to Pence’s comments.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.