President Donald Trump issued yet another reprieve to TikTok on Friday, posting on his Truth Social account that he was issuing an executive order to “SAVE TIKTOK.”
Trump has infamously reversed his position on the social media app, owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. In 2020, he signed an executive order that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if ByteDance didn’t sell its interest. TikTok executives were spotted
at Trump’s inauguration events smoozing people in the president’s inner circle, and he signed an executive order in January extending
the deadline at that time.
The latest version of the grace period was set to end on April 5
— until Trump’s announcement Friday.
My Administration has been working very hard on a Deal to SAVE TIKTOK, and we have made tremendous progress. The Deal requires more work to ensure all necessary approvals are signed, which is why I am signing an Executive Order to keep TikTok up and running for an additional 75 days. We hope to continue working in Good Faith with China, who I understand are not very happy about our Reciprocal Tariffs (Necessary for Fair and Balanced Trade between China and the U.S.A.!). This proves that Tariffs are the most powerful Economic tool, and very important to our National Security! We do not want TikTok to “go dark.” We look forward to working with TikTok and China to close the Deal. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
British-born comic and actor Russell Brand has opened up about rape and sexual assault charges filed against him Friday, denying the allegations while also tearing into the British government for “weaponizing” the law.
In a social media video
titled “My response,” Brand appears from what looks like a tropical location while wearing a sun hat, showing appreciation to his fans and supporters.
“Hello! Firstly, thank you for these incredible and overwhelming messages of support,” he said in the clip, posted several hours after The Forgetting Sarah Marshall star was slapped with
two counts of rape, two of sexual assault, and one of indecent assault by Metropolitan Police.
“We’re very fortunate in a way to live in a time when there is so little trust in the British government. We’re very fortunate, I suppose, that this is happening at a time when we know that the law has become a kind of weapon to be used against people, institutions and sometimes entire nations that will not accept and tolerate levels of corruption around precedent.”
“How do you feel about your legal system right now? How do you feel about some of the high-profile cases that are not being pursued and prosecuted? How do you feel that the Southport murders were handled? How do you feel about the government of Keir Starmer?”
He then did a heel-turn back to the charges against him, explaining his sordid past while strongly denying the allegations brought by four unnamed accusers that reportedly date back over 20 years.
“I’ve always told you guys, that when I was young and single before I had my wife and family… I was a fool, man. I was a fool before I lived in the light of the Lord. I was a drug addict, a sex addict, and an imbecile. But what I never was was a rapist. I’ve never engaged in nonconsensual activity. I pray that you can see that by looking in my eyes.”
He concluded by saying: “I now have the opportunity to defend these charges in court. And I’m incredibly grateful for that. In the meantime, you lot, stay free. And we will be continuing to discuss this matter. Praise the Lord.”
Brand, 50, was a comedy staple in the UK before exploding on the US scene as Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall in 2008. He later reprised the role in 2010’s Get Him to the Greek.
The author and podcaster, who has been open about his past struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, was briefly married to American pop star Katy Perry from 2010 to 2012.
Conservative talking head and founder of the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, hammered President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs on his show this week, noting that they are both “probably unconstitutional” and based on backward logic regarding trade deficits.
“Yesterday, President Trump declared that it was, in fact, Liberation Day, his giant tariff policy that he just dropped on the market
unilaterally, probably unconstitutionally. Trump’s reciprocal tariffs imposed hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on Americans be the largest tax increase since the Revenue Act of 1968, one of the biggest tax increases on American consumers in the history of America,” Shapiro said in a clip for Thursday’s show, adding:
Again, it’s going to cost American consumers, it will cost American producers who use inputs from other countries. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted immediately more than a thousand points. The S&P 500 plummeted more than 3%, the NASDAQ plummeting almost four and a half percent.
There are real world implications for this sort of stuff. Trade wars are in fact not good and not easy to win, particularly if you don’t actually have a plan. It is predicated on a bad idea of how international trade works. A fundamental misunderstanding of trade deficits. Trade deficits are an accounting procedure. Trade deficits have pretty much nothing to do with the health of an economy. I can name you a period in American history where there was a fairly large surplus in America’s balance of trade. The entire Great Depression.
During the episode, Shapiro elaborated on his issue with trade deficits driving Trump’s tariff policies.
“So the idea that every trade deficit someone is getting screwed is a zero-sum view of how economies work and it’s not true. As Thomas Sowell points out, the eminent economist, quote, ‘If the goods and services available to the American people are greater as a result of international trade, then Americans are wealthier, not poorer, regardless of whether there is a deficit or a surplus in the international balance of trade,’” he argued, adding:
In fact, I can name you a period in American history where there was a fairly large surplus in America’s balance of trade, the entire Great Depression.
Now, there were times in American history that were great where we also had a surplus. There were times in American history that sucked where we had a deficit, and times in American history that were great where we had a deficit. As it turns out, trade deficits have pretty much nothing to do with the health of an economy.
Notably, Trump also slapped tariffs on countries that the U.S. has a trade surplus
with – like the U.K. and Australia.
James Carville compared law firms and companies working with President Donald Trump to Nazi collaborators in World War II.
Multiple major law firms
have recently agreed
to hundreds of millions of dollars of pro bono work for the administration. The agreements follow the president’s use ofexecutive orders
to target law firms involved in investigations against him.
Milbank became the latest law firm to agree to a deal with Trump. The president announced through Truth Social that the firm is providing $100 million in free legal services to causes supported by the company and the administration.
In a Fridaay video for Politicon, Carville
accused law firms and companies of “sucking up” to the president and predicted that the collaboration would not be looked on too kindly by history. The longtime Democratic strategist even compared these firms in a post-Trump world to Nazi collaborators in France following the liberation of Paris
in August 1944.
Carville said:
Maybe you need to go in history and see what happened in August of 1944, after Paris was liberated. They didn’t take very kindly to the collaborators. No, it was not a very pretty sight in the streets of Paris. I’m not saying that these people should be placed in pajamas and have their heads shaved, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, and spit on. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that that did happen. And I’m saying that these people betrayed the French nation in the same way that I think that these law firms and these giant corporate conglomerates are betraying the United States.
The once-advisor to former President Bill Clinton made clear that he is not calling for or in approval of any sort of violence as retaliation.
“What their comeuppance is, I can only guess,” he said.
Carville went on to call lawyers at these “collaborating” law firms a “disgrace” and some of the “greatest traitors” in the nation’s history.
“These people are a disgrace to the law firms they represent, to the companies that they represent and are supposed to be in self-interest, and they’re a disgrace to the United States and etch their names in the tablet of history for being some The greatest traitors, appeasers that we’ve seen in the history of our great country,” he said.
Carville called for an “intellectual reckoning” once Trump is out of the White House.
“When this is over, there has to be, at a minimum, an intellectual reckoning with this class of appeasers that are here,” he said.
Fox News host Sean Hannity questioned the legitimacy of Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace’s “liberal” views, suggesting they might be playing roles just for a “nice big check” from MSNBC.
Hannity joined Kyle Forgeard on the Full Send podcast
this week, and he took a few shots at his fellow cable news commentators while discussing his nearly 30 years with Fox News.
“How do you think Fox differs from other networks?” Forgeard asked after Hannity talked about his “great relationship” with Fox.
Hannity claimed Scarborough went from a Republican congressman from Florida to “big liberal Joe” on Morning Joe
.
“I mean, am I really supposed to believe that Joe Scarborough, who used to represent the most conservative district in Florida, all of a sudden became a liberal? It seems kind of expedient to me that he wanted to be on television, get paid a nice big check. And so he goes on MSNBC, and now he’s a big liberal Joe,” he said.
Hannity then turned his attention to Wallace, making similar accusations and citing her work with former President George W. Bush — she was a White House communications director in his administration — and the late John McCain — Wallace was a senior advisor to his 2008 presidential campaign. Hannity claimed she’s “radical” and “hardcore left-wing” in part because of her vocal opposition to President Donald Trump.
“Or Nicolle Wallace, she ran John McCain and Sarah Palin’s campaign. She worked for George W. Bush. And now, she’s like radical, hardcore left-wing, Trump hating,” Hannity said.
The Fox host questioned whether Wallace had a “change of heart” while praising himself as a consistent Republican.
“Could she have had a change of heart? I don’t know. But I’ve kind of stayed consistent throughout my career. I’m a Reagan, Make America Great Again, Trump conservative. That’s how I describe myself,” he said.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday that he believes President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs and resulting trade wars risk “both higher unemployment and higher inflation.
Speaking at an event just outside Washington, DC, Powell told
the crowd, “While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it is also possible that the effects could be more persistent.”
CNN’s Vanessa Yurkevich reported on Powell’s remarks during Inside Politics on Friday midday. Anchor Dana Bash began the segment by playing a quick clip of Powell, saying:
Looking ahead, higher tariffs will be working their way through our economy and are likely to raise inflation in coming quarters. While uncertainty remains elevated, it is now becoming clear that tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected. And the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth. The size and duration of these effects remains uncertain.
Yurkevich reported, “Now, reporters in the room also asked Jerome Powell whether he believes that the economy is headed for a recession. He would not answer that. But we know JP Morgan revised their recession outlook up from 40 percent before President Trump announced these tariffs on April 2nd to 60 percent.”
“And you can see just what the stock market has done over time since President Trump took office in January. Just a steep decline at the Nasdaq, the S&P, and on the Dow. Just a precipitous decline, especially in this last week, as investors are craving some sort of uncertainty [sic]. Dana, does it look like they’re getting that right now,” she concluded.
Notably, Powell, who was appointed by Trump in his first term, told
reporters in November that he would not step down if Trump asked him to or tried to fire him.
Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner spoke to Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) on Friday and tried her best to put a positive face on President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which China just hit back at with a 34% tariff of their own on U.S. goods. Kennedy, however, sounded the alarm on Americans losing money in the stock market and warned of contracting GDP as a result of consumers spending less in a heavily tariffed economic environment.
“Mr. John Kennedy of Louisiana, member of the Finance, Banking, Judiciary, and Appropriations Committees, is with me now. Great to see you. Look, there are a lot of people in this country who have worked their whole lives, put money into the stock market through their job 401(K)s,” Faulkner began, asking:
There are people who are getting ready to retire and maybe looking to that money. What the president is asking people to do is give him a little bit of time. What’s your take on the message now to the American public? Because we have hit a place now where, as the president says, China’s reacting.
“Well, I didn’t know what China would do. I didn’t know and still don’t know what other countries will do. I’ve said consistently, since the president made his tariffs announcement, that we’re in uncharted waters. We’re in the economic unknown,” Kennedy replied, before offering his take:
The president’s long-term goal is laudable. I support it. It’s not complicated. America is rich. We buy a lot of stuff. Every business in the world wants to sell to us. The president is saying to those businesses in other countries, if you want to sell us and take our money, then you need to move your business to America and hire our people.
Now, who can be against that? Again, though, I’ve also been careful to say we’re in uncharted waters. The stock market matters. And before I talk about it, let me say the economy is fundamentally sound. We just got a good jobs report. I wouldn’t trade places with any other country in terms of our economy.
But the stock market does matter. About 62% of Americans have money in the market. The wealth effect is real– there’s reliable data that shows that for every one dollar that the stock market, holdings in the stock market go down, people spend twenty-five cents less. Well, we’re a consumer-driven economy and if people are spending less, that’s gonna affect your GDP.
And so I’m not going to bubble wrap it. What’s happening is not good
. Now will it continue? Will we find the bottom and then it will start to go back up? I hope so. That’s what I’m pulling for. But if it doesn’t, we’ll have to recalibrate.
Faulkner struck a conciliatory tone and replied, “You know, the power of the words you just spoke and where you started with, we’re in uncharted territory. So is the rest of the world. The rest of the world’s never seen anybody do what we’re doing right now. But they do know Trump.”
“And if some of them have ever had any dealings with him, and many people around the world have, before he was president, they knew who he was. Art of the deal. They know that the reason you go into that uncharted territory is because you have a plan to get on the other side. So it’s interesting. There have been some countries that have early on said, ‘OK, we hear you.’ China came back with 34. We’ll see what it does with that 34%. But you and I, and I hear it from your voice, we’re counting on America. And the rest of the world
is also in uncharted territories,” she concluded before moving on.
Kennedy, known for his colorful commentary on issues, has broken with Trump on tariffs, despite being a reliable booster of the president’s agenda. The Louisiana Republican shared a Fox News hit he did earlier in the week on Thursday to X and captioned it, “Tariffs are like whiskey: A little whiskey, under the right circumstances, can be refreshing—but too much whiskey, under the wrong circumstances, can make you drunk as a goat.”
Tariffs are like whiskey:
A little whiskey, under the right circumstances, can be refreshing—but too much whiskey, under the wrong circumstances, can make you drunk as a goat. pic.twitter.com/j2a5Qn8K3p
Nintendo has delayed pre-orders for its hotly anticipated new Switch 2 console as the gaming giant grapples with President Donald Trump’stariffs
imposed on China and other nations around the world.
The company had originally set pre-orders for April 9 in the U.S.
“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,” Nintendo said in a statement to Mediaite. “Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.”
Retaliatory 34 percent tariffs
imposed by China will take effect on April 10, and include — but won’t be limited to — electronics, sporting goods and clothing.
The Switch 2
has been the subject of gamer outrage over its high cost, with a console going for $449.99. The Mario Kart World Bundle edition that includes the newest Super Mario adventure will sell for $499.99.
CNBC host Jim Cramer said if President Donald Trump continues on the same path, the stock market dive could turn into a genuine “crash.”
The stock market
dropped like a boulder as soon as the opening bell rang Thursday morning after Trump announced his tariff program
, and closed
almost 1700 points in the hole — and that was before China announced reciprocal tariffs
that sent futures crashing again. But Trump, in comments to reporters on the North Lawn
and aboard Air Force One
Thursday afternoon, projected success.
On Friday morning’s edition
of CNBC’s Squawk on the Street
— minutes before the opening bell saw the Dow plunge almost a thousand points in an instant — Cramer told co-host Carl Quintanilla that “if you wanted to make the market crash, I think you would go with this game plan”:
CARL QUINTANILLA: Are you suggesting because this will get written up —
JIM CRAMER: I don’t care.
CARL QUINTANILLA: — That we are approaching the risk of a true market crash. We don’t use that word on this air —
JIM CRAMER: No I’m just saying if you bottom-fished Thursday and if you bottom-fished Friday in 1987, you slept with the fishes on Monday.
CARL QUINTANILLA: You did suggest this morning that maybe the selling in Apple’s a good example, was getting a little too aggressive.
JIM CRAMER: Well, I mean, look. A lot of people are in disbelief and don’t think that a Peter Navarro, for instance, who’s a very fine man, or a Bessent, wouldn’t go in, maybe a Lutton, he wouldn’t even go to the president and say, “Look, we don’t really want a crash. You don’t want to be as hard-line. Maybe you do the TikTok deal. Maybe you say, look, but here’s a way to cure things, which was the way that Nvidia did with Taiwan.”
But they could have a crash, I don’t see why not. Why would you buy stocks?
…
I do think that what’s happened, Carl, is that I struggle for why — for what the president’s game plan is.
Because if you wanted to make the market crash, I think you would go with this game plan.
I don’t like that game. I do not favor that. That’s a they know nothing game plan, and it’s very disappointing because I’m a savvy person, business person, surrounded by business people. It should not be in our country’s interest to have the market crash.
Now, if I am blank for what I said, you know what? I don’t play for dinner! I am finally at the age where I am allowed to say that if I mean it. Now, I said it a couple of other times and I was right.
In every occasion I was in cash for 1987 in cash. That was not stupid. I was cash for the crash. I obviously said in 2007 that the… They knew nothing. That was a good call.
I don’t want this to be that call. There’s plenty of opportunity for the president to say, you know, I’ve been thinking, you know. We’ll do the TikTok deal. We’ll avoid this. Here’s the cure path. Peter Navarro, will you give him a cure path? I mean, what are you doing? You’re in the Peace Corps for heaven’s sake. Tofs, you were like a regular guy.
But then you have to be careful, because I can’t think of a single reason in the world to buy a stock.
NBC News dominated TikTok’s news ecosystem in Q1 2025, blowing past other major media rivals with a record 2.5 billion views in 2025’s first quarter.
The surge came during a relentless stretch of breaking news — from the LA wildfires to the final days of former President Joe Biden’s presidency and President Donald Trump’sreturn to office
.
During that time, according to Comscore Media Metrix, NBC News’ flagship TikTok account racked up its staggering 2.5 billion video views, January alone delivered 1.2 billion of those views, NBC’s best TikTok month on record, edging out CBS News by 300k views.
The numbers give NBC News
its highest quarterly TikTok total in network history, a 76% jump from Q4 2024. Compared to the same period last year, it’s 18 times higher — underscoring not just the continued shift of audiences to mobile-first news consumption on vertical video but the network’s strategic ability to meet that need.
While NBC’s main account led the charge, the network’s wider TikTok portfolio — including Dateline, TODAY, Stay Tuned, Meet the Press, and NBC Nightly News — piled on with hundreds of millions more views.
The competition wasn’t even close. CBS News trailed behind with 2.0 billion views, followed by ABC News at 1.5 billion, CNN at 1.4 billion, and Fox News at 1.3 billion. Far further down the list, The New York Times logged 133 million views, while The Washington Post brought in 52 million.
And it’s not just TikTok. NBCNews.com also flexed serious digital muscle in 2025, averaging 89 million monthly unique visitors. In January the site drew 97 million uniques, its third-best month in four years.
The message from viewers is clear: In a breaking news moment, they are turning to NBC in big numbers — and increasingly, they’re doing it on TikTok.
