Principals

☞ White House: Second Gentlemen Doug Emhoff will visit a local suicide prevention call center today to spotlight mental health in the wake of Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss’ death, the longtime DJ on the Ellen Degeneres Show.

☞ Chuck Schumer: The Senate passed a bill to fund the government for one week, sending it to Biden’s desk. Senators rejected two Republican amendments, including one that would torpedo the omnibus by extending the funding bill into March. Schumer can now focus on getting the omnibus over the finish line next week.

☞ Mitch McConnell: In a win for Republicans, the NDAA that also passed Thursday night included a repeal of the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. “The Biden Administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for our military has hurt readiness and retention,” McConnell tweeted.

☞ Nancy Pelosi: The outgoing Speaker held her last press conference Thursday and rebuffed a reporter who asked whether she’d commit to staying the full two years as a rank-and-file member of California. Her words: “Don’t bother me with questions like that.”

☞ Kevin McCarthy: Tensions are still high in the speaker’s race. A small crop of moderate Republicans want to punish the Republican leader’s critics by taking away their committee assignments. We’re told the idea isn’t popular.

The immigration negotiations between Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., are over, leaving millions of Dreamers facing an uncertain future. The biggest points of contention with Republicans were over how long to continue an expedited expulsion program similar to the expiring Title 42, and in what circumstances families should be held in mandatory detention. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, who first reported the bill’s death, said that Mitch McConnell was also unwilling to attach an immigration deal to the omnibus spending package, its best remaining route to passage.

Time is running out for the Jan.6 committee, but the panel will meet one final time on Monday presumably to vote on making criminal referrals to the Justice Department beyond the one for former President Trump. The committee will also release its final report next week describing its findings after investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol that occurred almost two years ago.

Former Harvard basketball player and outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) will be the next president of the NCAA starting in March of next year, the organization announced. They’re hoping he’ll be more successful as an executive than he was as a basketball player: Baker averaged 1.6 points per game in eight appearances for Harvard.

— Kadia Goba and Morgan Chalfant

Punchbowl News: Pelosi is pushing for Sen. Josh Hawley’s, R-Mo. bill to ban TikTok on government devices to be added to the omnibus package. The bill cleared the Senate earlier this week.

Playbook: Chuck Schumer is making one last effort to get the cannabis banking bill across the finish line by attaching it to the omnibus.

Axios: Pete Buttigieg insists he’s ready for the GOP grilling he’ll face in the new Congress on climate change and other issues. “I’m absolutely ready to take our case to the Hill,” he told a group of reporters.

Democrats are dancing around a TikTok ban

THE NEWS

Senator Mark Warner, D-Va. isn’t quite ready to ban TikTok, the ultra-popular Chinese social media app. But he also had a message to the Biden administration, which is currently reviewing it for national security concerns: Hurry up.

“I figured I wanted to give them the chance to make their case first,” Warner told Semafor. But his patience for action, he said, was “running out.”

Warner is one of several key Senate Democrats who say they’re at least open to a blanket ban on TikTok in the U.S., which keeps lawmakers up at night worrying about Chinese agents scraping data and their children up at night watching lava fail to melt ice.

For now, they’re not rushing to cosponsor a bill by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. that would do just that. But they also think Rubio is onto something.

Semafor spoke to six of the eight senators on the Democratic side of the Senate Intelligence Committee, none of whom ruled out supporting the bill.

One, Sen. Angus King, I-Me., an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, told Semafor he is “sympathetic” to the idea of a ban “but not fully on board” yet. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. told Semafor Rubio is “raising very important questions about TikTok and Beijing’s control of that platform,” while Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. suggested lawmakers should be prepared to get out of their comfort zone with more aggressive legislation.

“When it comes to China we’ve got to undertake measures that either have not been contemplated before or … deal with issues we have not dealt with before,” he told Semafor.

The idea of banning TikTok was born during the Trump administration, when the former president tried to muzzle the social media app by executive order. A court halted it and Biden ultimately revoked the executive order when he took office, instead conducting talks with TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, about a potential deal to address their concerns.

Lawmakers in both parties still fret that data belonging to American TikTok users could end up in the hands of Chinese officials and potentially be used in surveillance or propaganda efforts. Detractors worry they could be compelled by China’s government to hand over U.S. information under a data security law.

Rubio’s bill has a Democratic sponsor in the House, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., but not in the Senate. There’s an effort behind the scenes afoot to acquire bipartisan support in the upper chamber, however. “We’ve had conversations, but nothing to share,” a Rubio spokesperson said.

MORGAN’S VIEW

You can hold off on breaking the sad news to the Gen Zers in your life, a full TikTok ban is still unlikely, in part because it would spur substantial pushback from Americans among whom the app is very popular. (And plenty are, in fact, voting age).

That gives the White House plenty of motivation to secure a deal that would satisfy both sides. Though it has run into delays due to a range of U.S. concerns, the White House is still attempting to reach an agreement with the company aimed at securing U.S. data, and Democrats seem like they’ll hesitate before torpedoing those talks.

The fact that influential Democrats aren’t ruling out a total ban does highlight the depth of their concerns about the app. But lawmakers worried about TikTok may find it more palatable to support narrower bans, like a bill sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. that would prohibit the use of TikTok on government devices. It passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Wednesday, but faces a more uncertain path in the House.

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

Some see the recent action on Capitol Hill and elsewhere as a sign of the tide definitively turning against TikTok.

“The end-game is finally coming into sight in TikTok’s long-running attempt to escape being banned in the US,” Richard Waters writes in the Financial Times, adding that the legislative efforts represent “a shot across the bows of the White House.”

So much for “free speech absolutism.” Twitter banned the accounts of at least eight journalists on Friday night, including tech reporters from the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN who had been critical of Elon Musk.

The move appeared to be at least partly related to Musk’s controversial decision the day before to suspend @ElonJets, a popular account dedicated to tracking the location of his private plane, which he said put his personal safety and family at risk. Some of the suspended journalists had tweeted about the account.

“Same doxxing rules apply to “journalists” as to everyone else,” Musk tweeted on Thursday night. He later elaborated that “They posted my exact real-time location, basically assassination coordinates, in (obvious) direct violation of Twitter terms of service,” an explanation that was met with some skepticism. Reporters’ outlets decried the move, and a CNN spokesperson even said the network would “reevaluate our relationship” with Twitter based on how Musk responded.

Unsurprisingly, the move led to a furious reaction among the media, as well as some Democratic politicians. Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass. tweeted that Twitter’s team had just promised her staff that it wouldn’t retaliate against journalists who criticized the platform, adding “What’s the deal, @elonmusk?” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, urged Musk to, “Take a beat and lay off the proto-fascism. Maybe try putting down your phone.”

It’s unclear how many American politicians or journalists will actually leave the platform in protest. “Twitter is a tragic necessity for elected officials,” Rep. Ritchie Torres D-N.Y. told Semafor. But the bans also led to an outcry among European officials, and hints that Musk could face punishment under the EU’s wider-reaching digital regulations.

“News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying. EU’s Digital Services Act requires respect of media freedom and fundamental rights.” tweeted European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová. “There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”

— Jordan Weissmann

Donald Trump has some NFTS to sell you

Donald Trump released a new plan to combat digital censorship on Thursday, as his campaign teased a reboot centered around small substantive policy events. New ideas included a ban on federal agencies discussing domestic “misinformation” and a 7-year “cooling off” period before former intelligence officials can work at “Big Tech” companies.

But if you were online during the day, odds are you missed that entire story, because Trump — after teasing a “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” earlier this week — dropped a 4-AM-infomercial-style video promoting a new line of $99 NFT trading cards in which the former president rides elephants, dressed as a cowboy, and shoots lasers out of his eyes.

For the low cost of 45 cards ($4455, cryptocurrency accepted), buyers could even attend a gala with Trump at Mar a Lago. Not a campaign fundraiser, though — the digital cards were strictly a private venture between Trump and an NFT company, an apparent shot at squeezing a few last dollars from a digital bubble that burst months ago.

Trump fans and high-level Republicans alike mostly seemed to greet the big reveal with dismay. “Please tell me this is [a] troll and the real major announcement will come later today,” tweeted Catturd, a pro-Trump account with 1.1 million followers. A GOP donor reached for comment simply responded “wow, just wow,” and began speculating about Trump’s legal bills. Trump stalwarts Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka called for whoever was responsible for the NFT rollout to be fired.

But the NFT drop also pointed to broader challenges facing his candidacy. For starters: “It’s another sign that he has lost what used to be greatest assets,” a former Trump campaign advisor told Semafor. “He really had his finger on the pulse of the country. And he clearly doesn’t anymore.”

It’s also a reminder that Trump’s handlers have their work cut out for them if they really want the ex-president to run a focused, policy-oriented race that will make voters forget antics like his recent dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes. There’s a long history of campaign and White House aides trying to wish Trump into a candidate who communicates through scripted events. It’s rarely worked in the past, and as of Thursday, it doesn’t seem to be working now.

— Semafor Staff

One Good Text with ... Lydiah Kemunto Bosire

WHAT THE LEFT ISN’T READING: The share of Americans who say they are living paycheck to paycheck rose to 63% in November, according to a new report from LendingClub.

WHAT THE RIGHT ISN’T READING: Claudine Gay will be the first Black president of Harvard University.

— with our partners at Ground News

• The White House’s attempts to clamp down on ghost guns is floundering so far, according to the New York Times. The homemade firearms, typically assembled from kits, are used in a growing number of shootings in states like California. But the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms, and Explosives has been cautious about enforcing a new federal rule meant to restrict them; the agency is worried that, because it was enacted without legislation from Congress, the regulation may be vulnerable to legal challenge.
• American politicians are in a rush to decouple the U.S. economy from China’s with expansive bans on tech exports. But in its hurry, Washington might just take things too far, Jon Bateman argues at Politico. “While many will celebrate “tough” responses to China’s genuinely troubling behavior, Americans and others may soon find themselves experiencing carelessly broken supply chains and a fracturing economic order,” he writes.

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— Steve Clemons

A story in yesterday’s newsletter misstated Sen. Kevin Cramer’s, R-N.D. committee assignments. He does not serve on the Appropriations Committee.