Closing summary
In theory, TikTok faces a ban that starts Sunday, after the supreme court upheld a law requiring its Chinese owner to sell the popular social media app’s US business in order to remain accessible in the country. But the story is far from over. Joe Biden’s outgoing administration said they’ll leave the decision on whether to enforce the ban to Donald Trump, who responded to the supreme court’s decision by saying he has not made up his mind yet about whether to do so. Meanwhile, Mother Nature has disrupted Trump’s hopes for a well-attended inauguration in its usual spot on the Capitol’s west front. The president-elect announced the swearing-in ceremony will be held indoors on Monday due to dangerously cold temperatures that are forecast for Washington DC. The last president to take the inaugural oath inside the Capitol was Ronald Reagan, at the start of his second term in 1985.
Here’s what else happened today:
Biden said the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered part of the US constitution, though he did not order the government archivist to add it to the document.
Progressive groups condemned Democrats who voted to advance the Laken Riley Act, which targets undocumented immigrants accused of theft. It may be the first piece of legislation Trump signs upon taking office.
The inaugural parade will be held inside the Capital One arena in downtown Washington DC, Trump said. It typically goes down Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to the White House.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the supreme court’s decision upholding the TikTok sell-or-ban law is “incredibly disappointing”.
TikTok’s peril is the gain of RedNote, another Chinese social media app that American users have flocked to in recent days.
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Prior to her nomination, Kristi Noem was not seen as a key player on immigration, though her record as South Dakota’s governor reflects a hardline Trumpian approach.
During the hearing, Noem repeatedly touted her decision to deploy South Dakota national guard troops to Texas’s border with Mexico in 2021. She has faced criticism from her constituents for failing to send those same troops to assist with disaster relief in the wake of catastrophic floods that ravaged parts of her state last summer. As head of the department, she would oversee the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In one exchange, the newly elected New Jersey senator Andy Kim, a Democrat, referenced reports that Trump intends to rely on advisers like Stephen Miller and “border czar” Tom Homan – who do not need Senate confirmation – rather than the DHS secretary to carry out his mass deportation plans.
“If [Homan] is going to be making decisions, then he should come before this committee as well,” Kim said.
Noem insisted that securing the border which she described as a “war zone” and under “invasion” would be a priority.
Noem also pledged to end the CBP One app, which was launched by the Biden administration as a way to create a more orderly system for claiming asylum. Since Biden’s asylum crackdown, the app is one of the only ways for migrants to claim asylum.
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Kristi Noem was asked whether she would stand up to Donald Trump if he tried to condition disaster aid funds to blue states such as California, which is dealing with historic fires.
Noem vowed to show “no political bias to how disaster relief is delivered to the American people” but dodged on whether she would confront Trump if he made such a demand.
Pressed by Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut if she would withhold aid from California if Trump directed her to, Noem said she would not comment on “hypotheticals”.
Blumenthal said it was “more than a hypothetical” given that Trump has already made the threat. She insisted that she would follow the law.
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Fireworks there were not during Kristi Noem’s Senate confirmation hearing to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
The tepidness suggested Noem, a Trump loyalist and the far-right governor of South Dakota, would face little resistance in her quest to win confirmation – and might even pick up a few Democratic votes to boot.
During the hearing before the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee, senators underscored the enormity of the role leading one of the largest departments in the entire federal government with more than 260,000 employees and a budget that exceeds $100bn.
Though border enforcement is a high-profile part of the department’s work, DHS is also responsible for agencies charged with securing critical infrastructure, preventing terrorist attacks, protecting the president and other leaders and responding to natural disasters.
Democratic Senators pressed Noem, the South Dakota governor who has gained prominence as a Trump loyalist and was even floated as a potential running mate before disclosing in her memoir that she had shot and killed their family dog, on whether she was prepared to lead a department she called “broken and dysfunctional”.
Republicans used the opportunity to bash the current homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, who they vilified to such a degree they ultimately impeached him.
Noem offered careful responses to questions, while taking care to praise Trump and his agenda repeatedly.
“Now, securing our homeland is a serious, sacred trust that must be relentlessly pursued and can never be taken for granted. Being safe within our borders here in America, is critical,” Noem said in her opening remarks.
“And yet Americans feel less safe than they have felt in decades.”
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Here’s more from the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino on the Senate’s passage of the Laken Riley Act, which may be the first piece of legislation Donald Trump signs when he returns to the White House:
The US Senate on Friday cleared the way for final approval of a bill that targets undocumented immigrants accused of theft-related crimes, a preview of how Republicans will use their majorities to help Donald Trump deliver on his long-promised border crackdown – and an early test of how Democrats will respond.
The Laken Riley Act, named after a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was murdered last year by a Venezuelan national, cleared a key procedural hurdle by a vote of 61-35, with 10 Democrats joining Republicans to advance it. A vote on final passage was scheduled for early next week, making it potentially one of the first pieces of legislation he signs as president.
Under the bill, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would be required to detain undocumented immigrants charged with crimes such as “burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting”. It would also allow state attorneys general to sue the federal government if they believed their states had been harmed by its failure to enforce immigration laws.
Immigrant rights groups and legal experts have raised concerns that the bill, if enacted, would infringe on individuals’ right to due process and could undermine federal authority to enforce immigration law. On Friday, progressives slammed Democrats for helping deliver Trump a swift legislative victory.
“Spineless. That’s the only word for the 10 Senate Democrats who handed Maga Republicans a gift they didn’t deserve,” said Sarah Dohl, chief campaigns officer of the progressive group Indivisible. “The Laken Riley Act is a racist, xenophobic attack on immigrants that shreds constitutional rights and hands power to extremists like [Texas attorney general] Ken Paxton to hijack federal immigration policy. It’s not just cruel – it’s a train wreck of chaos and bad faith. And yet, Senate Democrats caved.”
Progressives decry Democratic backing for legislation to detain undocumented migrants accused of theft
Progressives and immigration advocates are furious with the Democrats who backed a Republican-led immigration bill, setting up what could be one of Donald Trump’s first major legislative victories as president.
Ten Senate Democrats joined Republicans today to clear the way for final approval of the Laken Riley Act, a bill that targets undocumented immigrants accused of theft-related crimes.
The Senate voted 61-35, setting the bill up for final passage on Monday, hours after Trump is sworn in.
Immigration advocates have warned that it infringes on individuals rights to due process and could undermine the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration law by empowering attorneys general.
Reacting to the vote, Andrea Flores, a vice-president for immigration policy at the advocacy group FWD.us and a former Biden administration official, wrote on X: “After decades of gridlock, it’s stunning that the first bipartisan immigration reform bill that is poised to become law has no relation to border security, fails to protect Dreamers, & instead forces ICE to detain people merely accused of crimes.”
In a letter urging lawmakers to reject the bill, the ACLU said the measure was a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” that “exploits the tragic death of Ms Laken Riley to expand the detention of people accused of non-violent offenses, without
actually improving public safety but while encouraging discriminatory and
arbitrary overdetention”.
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Biden says Equal Rights Amendment is part of US constitution, but stops short of ordering it added
Joe Biden this morning announced that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment part of the US constitution, but did not move to order it officially inscribed in the nation’s charter.
The amendment adds protection against discrimination on the basis of sex to the US constitution, and nearly made the cut to be ratified in the 1970s and 1980s, until a conservative counterattack stopped its momentum. But Democrats and progressives in recent years have argued that the conditions for it to become the 28th amendment have been satisfied, and in a statement today, Biden said he believed that to be the case:
On January 27, 2020, the commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the constitution as the 28th amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our constitution.
It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people. In keeping with my oath and duty to constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.
However, he did not order the US government archivist to add it to the constitution. Late last year, the archivist publicly stated she does not believe it can be considered as ratified.
Here’s more on this story:
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Ohio’s Republican lieutenant governor, Jon Husted, will take up JD Vance’s vacant seat in the US Senate as Vance joins Donald Trump in the White House from Monday as veep.
DeWine’s choice ends months of tussling among Ohio Republicans for Vance’s coveted position, which he held for less than two years.
Husted, 57 and a former Ohio House speaker and Ohio secretary of state, will serve until 15 December 2026. A special election for the last two years of Vance’s six-year term will be held in November 2026.
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Donald Trump’s first vice-president, Mike Pence, with whom the president-elect has since fallen out, encouraged him to allow the TikTok ban to go into effect, if ByteDance does not find a US buyer for the app.
Writing on X, Pence said:
The Supreme Court’s decision upholding the law requiring TikTok to divest from the Chinese Communist Party is a victory for the privacy and security of the American people. This law was the result of a bipartisan cooperation and I commend it’s authors and supporters in Congress for enacting this vital law for our national security. The CCP has been put on notice that the American people’s data is no longer for the taking. The incoming Trump administration must be prepared to uphold this TikTok divestment law and put the privacy and security of America first.
Donald Trump’s inauguration has a long guest list, and now everyone on it will have to somehow be packed into the Capitol. Here’s a look at who is expected to attend, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait and Jon Henley:
As a theme, it could be entitled “all the president’s friends”.
Donald Trump’s boast that “in this term, everybody wants to be my friend” – voiced at a press conference in Mar-a-Lago last month – is likely to be borne out in emphatic fashion at his second presidential inauguration on Monday.
As ever with Trump, there is a strong element of exaggeration. Not everyone wants to be his friend and detractors remain.
But the list of luminaries from the worlds of business, show business and even international politics attests to a transformed landscape compared with his first inauguration in 2017, when he was still the consummate outsider and – to many in the establishment – a renegade figure who struggled to attract big names.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate and erstwhile partner of Elon Musk in remaking US government, is also planning to moonlight in a second job: as governor of Ohio.
The Washington Post reports that Ramaswamy will soon announce a run to replace the term limited current governor, Republican Mike DeWine.
The Post reports a source familiar with Ramaswamy’s thinking as saying: “The statement is drafted. It is ready.”
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The New York Times has in-depth reporting today on how the top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer informed Joe Biden he could not win re-election.
With Biden very shortly to leave the White House, it often seems that many Democrats, and their staffs, are engaged in a rewriting – or at least a respinning – of history to make it look as if Trump’s shock win was something they thought would happen all along.
The Times brings us a lengthy look at Schumer’s attempts to get Biden to drop out of the race. The key paragraph:
“If there were a secret ballot among Democratic senators, Mr. Schumer would tell the president, no more than five would say he should continue running. Mr. Biden’s own pollsters assessed that he had about a 5 percent chance of prevailing against Donald J. Trump, Mr. Schumer would tell him — information that was apparently news to the president. And if the president refused to step aside, the senator would argue, the consequences for Democrats and Mr. Biden’s own legacy after a half-century of public service would be catastrophic.”
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The day so far
In theory, TikTok faces a ban that starts Sunday, after the supreme court upheld a law requiring its Chinese owner to sell the popular social media app’s US business in order to remain accessible in the country. But the story is far from over. Joe Biden’s outgoing administration said they’ll leave the decision on whether to enforce the ban to Donald Trump, who responded to the supreme court’s decision by saying he has not made up his mind yet about whether to do so. Meanwhile, Mother Nature has intervened in Trump’s hopes for a well-attended inauguration in its usual spot on the Capitol’s west front. The president-elect announced the swearing-in ceremony will be held indoors on Monday due to dangerously cold temperatures that are forecast for Washington DC. The last president to take the inaugural oath inside the Capitol was Ronald Reagan, at the start of his second term in 1985.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
The inaugural parade will be held inside the Capital One arena in downtown Washington DC, Trump said. It typically goes down Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to the White House.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the supreme court’s decision upholding the TikTok sell-or-ban law is “incredibly disappointing”.
TikTok’s peril is the gain of RedNote, another Chinese social media app that American users have flocked to in recent days.
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Here’s what it looked like in 1985, when Ronald Reagan’s swearing-in ceremony for his second term was held in the Capitol rotunda due to bad weather:
According to the National Weather Service, the temperature on 21 January 1985 was only 7F (-13.9C) at noon, the time the constitution specifies the swearing-in is to take place.
For an idea of what Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday would have looked like, had it not been moved indoors, here’s the scene from his swearing-in at the start of his first term in 2017:
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Seats have already been set out on the platform on the Capitol’s west front for Donald Trump’s inauguration, which will now be moved indoors due to the cold weather.
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Donald Trump added that the other festivities scheduled for his inauguration day will be held indoors, including the traditional parade.
They will instead be held at Capital One arena in downtown Washington DC, home of the Washington Wizards NBA team and Washington Capitals NHL team.
The president-elect wrote:
We will open Capital One Arena on Monday for LIVE viewing of this Historic event, and to host the Presidential Parade. I will join the crowd at Capital One, after my Swearing In.
All other events will remain the same, including the Victory Rally at Capital One Arena, on Sunday at 3 P.M. (Doors open at 1 P.M.—Please arrive early!), and all three Inaugural Balls on Monday evening.
Everyone will be safe, everyone will be happy, and we will, together, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
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Trump says inaugural address will be delivered in Capitol rotunda due to cold weather
Donald Trump has confirmed that his inauguration ceremony will take place inside the Capitol on Monday, due to low temperatures forecast in Washington DC that will make holding the traditional outdoor swearing-in unsafe.
Trump made the news official in a post on Truth Social, which read:
January 20th cannot come fast enough! Everybody, even those that initially opposed a Victory by President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Administration, just want it to happen. It is my obligation to protect the People of our Country but, before we even begin, we have to think of the Inauguration itself. The weather forecast for Washington, D.C., with the windchill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows. There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way. It is dangerous conditions for the tens of thousands of Law Enforcement, First Responders, Police K9s and even horses, and hundreds of thousands of supporters that will be outside for many hours on the 20th (In any event, if you decide to come, dress warmly!).
Therefore, I have ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in 1985, also because of very cold weather. The various Dignitaries and Guests will be brought into the Capitol. This will be a very beautiful experience for all, and especially for the large TV audience!
Reacting to the supreme court’s decision upholding the TikTok ban, the outgoing attorney general, Merrick Garland, said:
The court’s decision enables the justice department to prevent the Chinese government from weaponizing TikTok to undermine America’s national security. Authoritarian regimes should not have unfettered access to millions of Americans’ sensitive data. The court’s decision affirms that this act protects the national security of the United States in a manner that is consistent with the constitution.
The deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, noted that the court found the law does not restrict freedom of speech, but rather addresses national security threats posed by the Chinese Communist party:
The court’s ruling also underscores that the bipartisan legislation upheld today is focused on protecting Americans, not restricting free speech. Rather, this legislation is about breaking the ties that bind TikTok to the government in Beijing, in a manner consistent with the constitution. The next phase of this effort – implementing and ensuring compliance with the law after it goes into effect on January 19 – will be a process that plays out over time.
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Trump's inauguration set to be moved indoors due to cold weather in Washington DC - report
Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday will likely be held indoors due to the very cold weather expected in Washington DC, CNN reports.
Inaugurations are typically conducted on a bandstand set up on the Capitol’s exterior west front, but the National Weather Service forecasts a high of 22F (-5.5C) on 20 January.
The last president to be sworn in indoors was Ronald Reagan, at the start of his second term in 1985.
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In a speech on the Senate floor, the Democratic minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said Congress and Donald Trump should work together to extend the deadline for when the ban on TikTok would go into effect:
We know a lot of things are up in the air with the TikTok ban scheduled to go into effect this weekend.
But everyone – the Biden administration, the incoming Trump administration, even the supreme court – should continue working to find a way to find an American buyer for TikTok, so we can both free the app from any influence and control from the Chinese Communist party and keep TikTok going, which will preserve the jobs of millions of creators.
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Trump says 'everyone must respect' supreme court decision on TikTok
Donald Trump elaborated on his thoughts on TikTok in a post on Truth Social, writing:
The Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the supreme court decision in the TikTok case “incredibly disappointing” and said it was based on “fear-mongering and speculation”.
“By refusing to block this ban, the supreme court is giving the executive branch unprecedented power to silence speech it doesn’t like, increasing the danger that sweeping invocations of ‘national security’ will trump our constitutional rights,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project.
In its opinion, the court wrote that the challenged lower court decision to ban TikTok was “content-neutral” because it imposes “TikTok-specific prohibitions due to a foreign adversary’s control over the platform and make divestiture a prerequisite for the platform’s continued operation in the United States. They do not target particular speech based upon its content.”
The opinion goes on to say that even if China has not yet used its connection to TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to access the vast troves of data that TikTok collects on its US users, it is a “reasonable inferenc[e] based on substantial evidence” that they might do so in the future”.
The ACLU called on the next administration to “fix or repeal this flawed legislation”.
“Taking away Americans’ free speech rights does not make us safer; it endangers our democracy,” said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at ACLU.
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White House says TikTok ban decision will be left to Trump
The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the question of implementing a ban on TikTok will be left to Donald Trump, Reuters reports.
Here’s the press secretary’s full statement:
The administration, like the rest of the country, has awaited the decision just made by the US supreme court on the TikTok matter. President Biden’s position on TikTok has been clear for months, including since Congress sent a bill in overwhelming, bipartisan fashion to the President’s desk: TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law. Given the sheer fact of timing, this administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next administration, which takes office on Monday.
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Trump says he'll 'be making the decision' on TikTok after supreme court upholds ban law - report
Donald Trump told CNN that he will decide what to do with TikTok once he takes office, after the supreme court upheld legislation that will ban it on Sunday unless its Chinese owner sells its US operations.
“It ultimately goes up to me, so you’re going to see what I’m going to do,” Trump said in an interview with the network. Asked if he would try to reverse the ban, should it go into effect, Trump said: “Congress has given me the decision, so I’ll be making the decision.”
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In response to arguments from TikTok and its supporters that the sale-or-ban law violates the first amendment, the supreme court noted:
It is not clear that the Act itself directly regulates protected expressive activity, or conduct with an expressive component. Indeed, the Act does not regulate the creator petitioners at all …
Petitioners, for their part, have not identified any case in which this Court has treated a regulation of corporate control as a direct regulation of expressive activity or semi-expressive conduct … We hesitate to break that new ground in this unique case.
Justice Neil Gorsuch expressed reservations about the TikTok sale-or-ban bill.
Though the conservative justice voted to uphold the law, he did not express total certainty in it.
“Whether this law will succeed in achieving its ends, I do not know. A determined foreign adversary may just seek to replace one lost surveillance application with another,” he wrote in his concurring opinion.
“But the question we face today is not the law’s wisdom, only its constitutionality. Given just a handful of days after oral argument to issue an opinion, I cannot profess the kind of certainty I would like to have about the arguments and record before us.”
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Supreme court cites national security concerns, TikTok's relationship with 'foreign adversary' in decision
TikTok’s attorneys had argued that the first amendment should have protected the social media app from Congress’s legislation that will impose a ban unless its Chinese owner divests.
But the supreme court disagreed, writing that Congress has legitimate concerns with TikTok, and the power to deal with them:
There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ first amendment rights.
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The court issued an unsigned “per curiam” decision in the TikTok case, meaning the nine justices were unanimous in their ruling.
However, two justices wrote concurring opinions in which they shared their own thoughts: the liberal Sonia Sotomayor, who noted she did not join in part of the majority opinion, and the conservative Neil Gorsuch, who concurred in the judgment, but shared some thoughts on the relatively short time the justices had to hear and decide the case.
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Supreme court upholds TikTok sale-or-ban law
The supreme court has allowed to go into effect a law that will force TikTok’s Chinese owner to sell its US business by Sunday, or face a ban.
With TikTok on the ropes, American users are flocking to RedNote, another Chinese social media app, to get their fix of the human connection and creativity we all crave. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Alaina Demopoulos:
Cute cats. Fit checks. Travel vlogs. Luigi Mangione latte art. Americans who downloaded RedNote saw it all this week, as they fled to the Chinese social media app in advance of an imminent (or not ) TikTok ban.
English language content has flooded RedNote, whose default language is Mandarin, with Americans posting introductions to themselves and kicking off cross-cultural discussions: How much do you pay for groceries? What Chinese slang do I need to know? Do you have any opinions about the state of Ohio?
Qian Huang, a professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who studies Asian youth and digital culture, said that she originally downloaded RedNote to keep up with Chinese trends. “But this week, I woke up and my feed was not the usual feed any more,” Huang said. “It was all English content. That was a bit of a weird feeling for me.”
Despite concerns about data privacy, the app shot to No 1 in US app stores on Tuesday, with more than half a million downloads from new users, after a supreme court hearing on TikTok’s future last week. The tech reporter Ryan Broderick noted on his Garbage Day newsletter that Black TikTok beauty influencers had seen RedNote’s potential for makeup tutorials and trend-spotting before the hearing.
Xi and Trump talk TikTok in call, president-elect says
Donald Trump says he has spoken to China’s president, Xi Jinping, about a range of topics, including TikTok.
Writing on Truth Social, the president-elect said:
I just spoke to Chairman Xi Jinping of China. The call was a very good one for both China and the U.S.A. It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately. We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!
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Trump signals support for TikTok as ban decision looms
If the supreme court allows the TikTok sell-or-ban law to go into effect, it will be up to Donald Trump to enforce it, and the incoming president has said he wants to keep the popular social media app available.
NBC News reports that Joe Biden’s administration does not plan to enforce the ban in what would be the final hours of its administration, assuming TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance does not find an American buyer. In Congress, forcing the sale of TikTok was a bipartisan cause, but Trump has warmed to the app, and even invited its CEO to sit on the dais at Monday’s inauguration.
Here are the steps he could take to allow it to remain available, even if ByteDance does not sell:
Supreme court to release opinions, with challenge to TikTok ban awaiting decision
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The supreme court has announced it will release opinions at 10am ET today, as a challenge to a law that will ban TikTok on Sunday unless its China-based owner sells its US business awaits the justices’ decision. As usual, the court did not say how many opinions will be released or on which cases, and thus we will just have to wait an hour or so to find out. Should they decide the TikTok case, we do have some hints on how the justices may rule – in oral arguments last week, they seemed inclined to uphold the law.
Meanwhile, we are in the final days of Joe Biden’s administration, and the Democratic president is making some last-minute moves ahead of Donald Trump’s arrival on Monday. This morning, he announced clemency for about 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, as well as 15 more prescription drugs that Medicare will negotiate lower prices for. Biden still could have more executive actions planned before he leaves office, including preemptive pardons to Trump’s enemies. We’ll let you know if he announces anything else today.
Here’s what else is going on:
If the TikTok ban is allowed to stand, the Biden administration does not plan to enforce it, NBC News reports.
Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who Trump picked for homeland security chief, has her Senate confirmation hearing at 9am today.
Israel’s cabinet just approved the Gaza ceasefire deal. Follow our live blog for more on this breaking story.
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