And now, Abby…

In recent days, as Senate Majority Leader John Thune grappled with the purpose of his chamber’s “advice and consent” role for executive-branch nominees, he left open the possibility of letting Trump bypass confirmation votes altogether via recess appointments. Of course, doing so would deal a dramatic blow to what remains of congressional power, and neuter one of the upper chamber’s levers of influence over the incoming administration. But the current controversy over confirmation comes down to something more prosaic: paperwork. While Trump continues to demand confirmations on day one, many of his cabinet nominees haven’t even submitted basic vetting materials, like financial disclosures, to the relevant Senate committees, and the F.B.I.’s background checks have been delayed. Whether or not the Senate will follow through on requiring final background checks is a live issue within the Republican conference, according to Politico. Such a situation puts every senator in the shoes of a hiring manager: If you hire a candidate without due diligence, you’re responsible for whatever misfortunes result. To wit: Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley postponed the committee’s hearing with A.G. nominee Pam Bondi over a delayed F.B.I. check. Meanwhile, education secretary nominee Linda McMahon has yet to turn in her paperwork, and aspiring D.N.I. Tulsi Gabbard has yet to furnish a pre-hearing questionnaire. For a senator, perhaps the most benign outcome of an irresponsible “yes” vote is looking, ahem, stupid if new revelations about, say, Pete Hegseth or Gabbard surface after they’ve already been confirmed to top national-security posts. (Certainly, in Hegseth’s case, Trump’s team was reportedly “blindsided” by allegations of sexual assault, which the appointee has vigorously denied.) And the electoral consequences might be minimal anyway—after all, who remembers which senators voted “yes” to confirm James Mattis or Mark Esper at the top of the Pentagon? But there are, of course, worse scenarios: In the event of a terrorist attack or a fumbled government response to some act of God (think former FEMA director Mike Brown, who was widely blamed for bungling the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina), every senator who voted for that official without due diligence will have to own their decision at the ballot box. And if senators can’t be bothered to comb for potentially compromising information on national security nominees now, America’s adversaries will be only too happy to do it themselves later. Indeed, this highlights one of the major differences between the modern House and Senate. These days, House Republicans tend to do whatever is necessary in order to survive, which usually means avoiding the wrath of Trump. But on the other side of the Capitol, there are still Republicans who think long and hard about their legacy. Why would they maneuver to protect their advice-and-consent role for nominations, just to rubber stamp unvetted and unqualified candidates?

Even before Joe Biden signed the April 2024 law requiring the app be banned or sold, TikTok argued that its platform was fairer to Trump than Meta or Twitter, both of which had blocked him after the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. But a more curated charm offensive began last spring, when TikTok officials started publicizing numbers showing that the app hosted twice as much pro-Trump as pro-Biden content. The campaign to win over Trump, who’d previously declared TikTok a national security threat, began to yield dividends. Trump joined the app in June 2024, in the heat of the presidential race. His account has 14.7 million followers, nearly twice as many as Kamala Harris’s. Where Trump once viewed the app as a Chinese Trojan horse, he now sees it as another virtual home for his base and a tool to convert the Trump-curious. “I’m now a big star on TikTok,” he posted on Truth Social in September. “We’re not doing anything with TikTok but the other side’s going to close it up. So if you like TikTok, go out and vote for Trump. If you don’t care about TikTok—and other things like safety, security and prosperity—then you can vote for a Marxist who’s going to destroy our country.” In conversations with six sources close to Trump, the consensus was that he wants to save the app, but hasn’t settled on how to do it. That’s keeping TikTok executives and potential buyers up at night. “Trump is solution-agnostic,” said an incoming senior Trump official. If the Supreme Court delays the ban, the executives are hopeful Trump could save the app by executive order—something I’m told Trump’s legal team is investigating. Another, more nuclear option would be for Trump to order his attorney general not to enforce the ban. The more permanent, ByteDance-friendly alternative would be to devise a new ownership structure that allows the Chinese to keep their financial stake in TikTok while adding a U.S. corporate partner. Since 2022, TikTok has been routing all its U.S. user data through Oracle’s cloud infrastructure in an attempt to reassure lawmakers who are concerned about China’s access to private information. TikTok executives are hoping Trump could take that arrangement a step further by reviving “Project Texas,” a deal first proposed in 2020, which would give Oracle and Walmart a combined 20 percent stake in TikTok. ByteDance would keep the TikTok algorithm and 80 percent of the company, while the newly constituted “TikTok Global” would promise to go public, hire 25,000 U.S. workers, and pour $5 billion into the U.S. Treasury. So far, however, members of Congress are unconvinced this sleight-of-hand would address concerns about Beijing’s access to U.S. user data.

Of course, the best outcome for potential buyers would be if ByteDance could be induced by Trump to sell the company to a U.S. consortium, delivering TikTok and its immense financial value into American hands and securing its growth on the bedrock of Delaware law. Another pitch being made to Trump—by a handful of billionaires including former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt and Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O’Leary—is that a group of American investors should buy the company outright from ByteDance, with Trump’s backing, as part of a trade deal. Under this proposed solution, Trump would use the threat of tariffs to pressure China to sell, an approach in line with Trump’s international negotiating technique and already a subject of discussion with Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. (Bessent, too, has met with Chew.) One source with knowledge of this thinking described the advantage for Trump this way: “Trump will say, ‘I will help find an American buyer.’ He can be the hero and say he helped an American find the money.” Farfetched? Maybe. President Xi Jinping faces his own domestic pressures not to be seen capitulating to a foreign rival, especially amid sluggish economic growth and a rising hypernationalist mood. But other U.S. trading partners including Canada and Mexico have already responded to Trump’s tariff threats with performative gestures designed to appease, distract, or offer up quick and cosmetic wins. A proponent of this route who has knowledge of the discussions told me: “The chances of China doing a deal was at 0 percent, and now we think it’s at 30 percent,” in exchange for Trump offering “less punitive economic agreements on tariffs.” Meanwhile, potential investors are trying to reach Trump through the press—which explains why Shark Tank co-host O’Leary was on Fox this week speaking directly to the president-elect. “Trump will be who we have to work with to close the deal in the months ahead,” he said. “So I wanted to let him know, as well as others in his cabinet, that we’re doing this, and we’re going to need their help.” (The last time O’Leary was at Mar-a-Lago, he was talking up the fantasy of making Canada the 51st state.) Today, McCourt and O’Leary announced “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” calling it a “a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Americans to reclaim a voice, choice, and stake in the future of the internet.” McCourt has supposedly secured about $20 billion in commitments from private equity, but at the end of the day, it’s unclear what the platform is worth without its vaunted algorithm—the secret sauce that has made the app so addictive. And not all of McCourt and O’Leary’s peers think they are particularly serious contenders, even if the two men are clearly serious about the bid, themselves. “No one in the incoming administration is talking to us about a sale,” a source working for TikTok told me. “These billionaires who are going around saying they are going to buy TikTok are nothing but peacockers and masqueraders.”

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