Donald Trump wants to save TikTok, after trying to get it banned during his first administration.

Before leaving office in 2020, Trump attempted to ban TikTok through an executive order claiming the app was a threat to “the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” Now he is expected to halt a ban put in motion by President Joe Biden.

So what changed?

Kellyanne Conway explained the president-elect’s newfound support for the insidiously addictive video-sharing app.

“He appreciates the breadth and reach of TikTok, which he used masterfully along with podcasts and new media entrants to win,” Conway told The Washington Post.

“There are many ways to hold China to account outside alienating 180 million U.S. users each month. Trump recognized early on that Democrats are the party of bans—gas-powered cars, menthol cigarettes, vapes, plastic straws, and TikTok—and to let them own that draconian, anti-personal choice space,” she said.

Conway managed to describe the president promising to bring back his “travel ban” targeting people from predominantly Muslim countries, including refugees from Gaza, as being in opposition to the so-called “party of bans.”

As Conway said, Trump was able to use TikTok to appeal to younger voters, which helped propel him to victory. Trump’s social media team garnered 3.2 billion TikTok views since the president-elect started using the app in June, according to the Post. In one of his first videos on the app he declared, “I’m gonna save TikTok.”

But Trump’s affair with TikTok started before he ever used the app.

After Trump stated his intent to ban the app, TikTok altered its algorithm and content moderation so that pro-Trump content would do better, according to The Information.

Trump would go on to court Jeff Yass, a major Republican donor and one of the largest investors in TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Yass also reportedly donated to Accuracy in Media, which funded the doxxing of pro-Palestinian college students.

The deadline by which ByteDance must divest from its U.S.-based TikTok operations is January 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration. The company has given no indication that it intends to comply, and challenged the ban as being unconstitutional.

Donald Trump has tapped former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to serve as the next ambassador to Israel.

“Mike has been a great public servant, Governor, and Leader in Faith for many years,” Trump said Tuesday in a statement. “He loves Israel, and the people of Israel, and likewise, the people of Israel love him. Mike will work tirelessly to bring about Peace in the Middle East!”

This will be the first time that the two-term ex-governor has held a diplomatic post, and the nomination gives little indication that Trump has legitimate intentions to deescalate the war. Huckabee has been a vocal defender of Israel amid its lopsided conflict against Palestine. In June, he came out against a potential ceasefire deal between the two countries, arguing to NewsNation that Hamas should not be negotiated with and that the only solution for the war would be their complete surrender.

“This is like trying to negotiate with the Nazis in World War II. You just don’t,” Huckabee told the network. “You beat them. You defeat them. You eradicate them.”

Israel has killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza in the more than yearlong war, with an additional 102,000 people injured in the conflict, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. A report by the United Nations Human Rights Office, published last week, found that close to 70 percent of those killed were women and children, with five- to nine-year-old children comprising the majority of the dead. Roughly 80 percent of the victims were killed in residential buildings or similar housing.

Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, first visited Israel in the early 1970s at the age of 17, and has since visited the country dozens of times. In 2011, Politico reported that the two-time Republican presidential candidate would make a meal out of his trips to Israel, often spending several weeks in the country, while other visiting politicos would simply stop there to “check a box” along their campaign trail.

Huckabee has argued that the term “West Bank” is offensive—he prefers referring to the region in the Old Testament terms “Judea” and “Samaria.”

And Huckabee has landed himself in the midst of a litany of other Middle East controversies for his staunch defenses of Israel. In 2015, the conservative drew ire for likening the Obama administration’s maneuverings on the Iran Nuclear Deal to the Holocaust, claiming that the president was “marching Israelis to the door of the oven.”

This story has been updated.

President Biden’s last appointment to the National Labor Relations Board has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, and Democrats only have a small window of time until Republicans take control of Congress.

Two of the board’s five members are Republicans, and two are Democrats, with its chairperson being chosen by the sitting president. In June, Biden nominated the current chair, Democrat Lauren McFerran, to a third term and Joseph Ditelberg to fill a vacant Republican seat. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not yet brought either nomination up for a vote.

The NLRB protects the right to form a union and enforces labor law, and McFerran’s confirmation in particular would........

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