President Donald Trump aims to prevent conflict with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea by building up U.S. and allies’ military power, according to a new U.S. strategy document. The Trump administration laid out its approach to one of the world’s most sensitive diplomatic issues in an official National Security Strategy document, released on Friday. It comes as Beijing ratchets up pressure on democratically governed Taiwan and Japan, deploying vessels across East Asian waters this week in its largest maritime show of force to date. “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” said the document, a periodically updated vision statement from the administration to Congress and the first since Trump took office in January. China views Taiwan as its own, and Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. China also has vast regional claims, including almost the entire South China Sea, which are disputed by many of its smaller neighbors. The United States has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan but Washington is the island’s most important international backer and is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. The issue has been an irritant in U.S.-China relations for years. The document’s language on Taiwan is stronger than the national security strategy produced during Trump’s first term in office. The document in 2017 mentioned Taiwan three times in a single sentence, echoing longstanding diplomatic language. The updated strategy, however, mentions Taiwan eight times across three paragraphs and concludes that “there is, rightly, much focus on Taiwan” because of its strategic location in trade-rich waters and dominance in semiconductor manufacturing. “We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere,” in the chain of islands stretching from Japan to Southeast Asia, said the latest document. “But the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone. Our allies must step up and spend – and more importantly do – much more for collective defense.” That will reinforce “U.S. and allies’ capacity to deny any attempt to seize Taiwan” or any other steps that would “make defending that island impossible,” the report said. 50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at DailyWire.com/cyberweek. Trump, a Republican, has largely avoided directly saying how he would respond to a rise in tensions over the island. Trump’s penchant for dealmaking and effort to seek closer ties with Chinese President Xi Jinping have kindled fears in the region of weakening U.S. support for Taiwan and regional allies from Tokyo to Manila. Trump plans to travel to Beijing in April, where the leaders will discuss extending the truce in their trade war. Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi drew Beijing’s wrath when she told parliament that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan that threatened Japan could justify a military response. Trump privately asked Takaichi not to escalate the dispute with China, Reuters previously reported. But Trump also signed a new law requiring his administration to regularly review how it interacts with Taipei. It also approved the sale of fighter jet and other aircraft parts to Taiwan for $330 million. Both were seen as signs of support by Taiwan. Trump has also pressed Japan and South Korea, two key regional allies, to hike defense spending. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Don Durfee and Diane Craft)

The House Committee on Homeland Security has asked Google and Apple to detail what steps they are taking to remove mobile applications that allow users to track federal immigration officers. In letters sent on Friday to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple head Tim Cook, committee leaders singled out ICEBlock, an app previously used to monitor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, saying apps hosted on their app stores risk “jeopardizing the safety of DHS personnel.” Lawmakers requested a briefing by December 12. The letters urged Google and Apple to ensure these apps cannot be used to target officers or obstruct lawful immigration enforcement. The committee noted that while free speech is protected, it does not extend to advocacy that incites imminent lawless action, referencing a landmark Supreme Court ruling. Google and Apple did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. 50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at DailyWire.com/cyberweek. The letters follow concerns that these tools allow users to anonymously report and track the movements of federal agents, including those from ICE and Customs and Border Protection. In October, Google said that ICEBlock was never available on Google’s Play Store and added it had removed similar apps due to policy violations. Apple also removed ICEBlock and other tracking apps from its App Store at the time. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the apps “put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs,” while Apple cited violations of its policies against content that could harm individuals or groups. The removals followed a surge in downloads of ICEBlock, which had more than a million users before being pulled. (Reporting by Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)

Some members of Congress on Friday deemed Netflix’s $82 billion proposed acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery’s studios and streaming unit an antitrust “nightmare” for consumers and creatives, while the company touted the deal as driving value for viewers, workers and shareholders. Netflix said the deal would create jobs and give its 300 million subscribers “more bang for their buck” by adding content at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration is focused on lowering prices. Nevertheless, Republicans in Congress have warned of potential antitrust problems with Netflix absorbing HBO Max and Warner Bros’ content rights. Democrats including U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren also criticized the transaction. Warren said the deal “would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market — threatening to force Americans into higher subscription prices and fewer choices over what and how they watch, while putting American workers at risk.” Both Warren and U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal, who co-chairs the House Monopoly Busters Caucus, called the deal a “nightmare.” “It would mean more price hikes, ads, & cookie cutter content, less creative control for artists, and lower pay for workers,” she said in a post on social media site X. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said the “proposed deal, and any other, should be closely scrutinized.” While Netflix won the bidding war for Warner Bros studio and streaming assets, it has been the political underdog compared with David Ellison-led Paramount Skydance, which has close ties with the Trump administration. Paramount is considering making an alternative takeover offer directly to Warner Bros shareholders, who have yet to vote on the Netflix deal, CNBC reported on Friday. Reuters could not verify the report. As the process played out, Republicans in Congress warned that a Netflix acquisition would reduce choice for consumers and give Netflix an unacceptably high share of the streaming market. On Wednesday, U.S. Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who leads the antitrust committee, said a Netflix buy of Warner Bros Discovery’s streaming assets “should send alarm to antitrust enforcers around the world.” 50% off DailyWire+ annual memberships will not return for another year, so don’t miss this deal! Join now at DailyWire.com/cyberweek. “Netflix built a great service, but increasing Netflix’s dominance this way would mean the end of the Golden Age of streaming for content creators and consumers,” Lee wrote in a post on X. Last month, Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas and Representative Darrell Issa of California also called on U.S. antitrust enforcers to scrutinize any possible Netflix-Warner Bros deal, saying it could lead to fewer movies in theaters. The deal, given its size alone, is likely to face significant antitrust review by the U.S. Department of Justice, and also because it would eliminate competition between HBO Max, which has 128 million subscribers, and Netflix. Netflix could counter by pointing to shifting media habits and the fact that Alphabet’s YouTube has recently been the most popular way for Americans to watch TV. “We’re highly confident in the regulatory process. This deal is pro-consumer, pro-innovation, pro-worker, it’s pro-creator, it’s pro-growth,” Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos said after the deal was announced. A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment on Friday. George Hay, a law professor at Cornell University, said the review will depend on how much of the content market Netflix would control after the deal, and whether or not it could be addressed by a partial sale of some assets. “Warner Bros has a lot of content already in the can. So you can imagine spinning off some of that content to another supplier, maybe a Paramount or something like that as a way of ameliorating or diminishing the market share,” he said. The deal will likely trigger intense antitrust scrutiny in the European Union due to the combined companies’ market share. UNIC, the EU trade body representing cinema trade associations and operators covering 39 territories, said it will share its concerns and opposition to the deal with competition authorities. The DOJ antitrust unit is led by Gail Slater, a former executive at Fox Corp and Roku. She was later an economic advisor to Vice President JD Vance. Last month, Slater signaled that the “main thing” for her office is focusing on the average American’s biggest expenditures. Housing, transportation, food, healthcare and utilities lead the list, with entertainment in fifth place at 5% of household spending, according to a pie chart Slater posted on X. But those entertainment costs have been rising. Netflix raised the price of its own standard ad-free plan by $2.50 to $17.99 a month in January. HBO Max followed suit, raising its ad-free service price last month by $1.50 to $18.49. Trump has a history of getting involved in big media mergers and weighing in on one side. He actively lobbied the DOJ in his first term to stop AT&T’s $85 billion purchase of Time-Warner, voicing concerns about media concentration and his own displeasure with Time-Warner’s CNN cable network. AT&T ultimately won in court in 2018 and 2019. Warren warned on Friday against political favoritism tainting the deal review process. “The Justice Department must enforce our nation’s anti-monopoly laws fairly and transparently — not use the Warner Bros. deal review to invite influence-peddling and bribery,” she said. (Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York, Foo Yun Chee in Brussels and Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; editing by Chris Sanders, Franklin Paul, Nick Zieminski and Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)

It seems that the Somali welfare fraud scandal is now breaking into full view, and it’s hitting a lot of people who are elected officials, including the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, and possibly Ilhan Omar. To understand why this matters so much, we have to understand that it is all tied to a couple of major national issues. One, of course, is mass migration from third-world countries. Is that something America should be pursuing? The second is a gigantic, unaccountable welfare state in which billions of dollars can simply go missing, which takes years to uncover. The two stories are intertwined. When it comes to the question of mass migration, the Trump administration has taken an incredibly strong position that mass migration, particularly from countries that do not adhere to American values, should be significantly limited or curtailed. This is a very open question, implicated by not only the Afghan national who shot two members of the National Guard, killing one, but also by this gigantic Somali welfare fraud case in Minnesota. As The Wall Street Journal points out: What happens when welfare becomes not a temporary hand up but an ingrained expectation of American life? For an ugly glimpse, look at the astonishing fraud unfolding in Minnesota. Turns out those GOP reformers were right to call out fraud in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.  The White House this week published a memo titled, “‘Yes, ‘There’s Something Wrong with Walz’—and it Cost Taxpayers $1 Billion,” highlighting various swindles in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. There may be as many fraud schemes as lakes in the state given the ease in which scammers tapped government funds. Some 86 individuals have been charged with defrauding Medicaid and the Federal Child Nutrition Program in Minnesota—yes, literally stealing lunch money from kids. “No one was doing anything about the red flags,” one defendant’s attorney told the New York Times. “It was like someone was stealing money from the cookie jar and they kept refilling it.” One of those alleged schemes, The Outfit Feeding Our Future, recruited individuals to set up a network of sham companies and sites that claimed to feed children in the pandemic. They then submitted false invoices and fake attendance rosters to the state. In fact, one of those rosters actually grabbed names from another web site called listofrandomnames.com. And somehow this worked for years. In another scheme, a 28-year-old woman allegedly launched a company, Smart Therapy, that claimed to provide one-on-one behavioral therapy to autistic children. She employed relatives with no formal education and recruited parents to enroll their non-autistic kids in her therapy sessions by paying them kickbacks of up to $1,500 a month per child. In a darkly comic twist, some parents allegedly extorted the woman by threatening to enroll their children in other autism centers if they weren’t paid bigger kickbacks. Smart Therapy allegedly billed Medicaid for the kids’ supposed therapy as well as their transportation to the appointments. It also submitted false claims for meals to the state’s food programs. In another indictment, eight individuals this fall were charged with fraudulently billing Medicaid to help recovering addicts find stable housing.  Yes, housing. Minnesota pioneered the use of Medicaid money to help beneficiaries secure housing on the questionable rationale that this would improve their health and reduce healthcare spending. Democrats built this entire massive infrastructure. And now, it turns out, lots of people took advantage of it. And those people were, in this particular case, Somali. It’s hilarious to watch members of the media try to create a rationale for why Somali immigrants to the United States, overall, have been a massive boon. In order for all this to happen, you need complicit politicians, because when the fraud is this big, and so many people seem to know about it, it seems almost impossible not to have elected officials who knew about it. The New York Post reported: US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s close ties to the $1 billion welfare scam in her Minnesota congressional district are being uncovered. Omar (D-Minn.) held parties at one of the key restaurants named in the fraud, knew one of its now-convicted owners, and one of her own staffers has also been convicted — both for stealing millions. Omar even introduced the bill that led to $250 million in fraud. Yet she claims to have been completely unaware of it.  “[Rep. Omar] knew who these people were. People she personally knew were making tens of millions of dollars in this program,” claimed Bill Glahn, a policy fellow with the Minnesota-based Center of the American Experiment, to The Post. “She had been inside the [Safari] facility on numerous occasions and couldn’t put 2 and 2 together? Either she’s terminally naive, or knew and didn’t care,” Glahn added.  Around $250 million was handed out by the Minnesota government to provide meals to schoolchildren during the pandemic from 2020 onward. Instead, it was pocketed by corrupt business owners, including Salim Ahmed Said. He’s the co-owner of Safari Restaurant, where Omar held her 2018 congressional victory party. Said was found guilty in August of stealing over $12 million for serving 3.9 million “phantom” meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. This happened inside Omar’s district. Her defense is, “Everybody who mentions this sort of stuff is racist.” That is always and forever the defense. President Trump, of course, has been highly critical of the Somali American mass migration issue. Omar says Trump is an abusive, deranged old man. This woman, who once suggested that 9/11 was “something some people did” and who herself wrote a letter to a judge asking that an ISIS recruiter be granted mercy because of the evils of having to integrate in America, is now calling the president an abusive, deranged old man because he’s been critical of Somali mass migration. Omar published a piece in The New York Times calling herself a victim, of course, because this is the way the Left always tries to get out of this. If you know a bunch of people who engaged in tremendous welfare fraud and they are big donors to you in your district, and you’ve made your career on pandering to that particular category of people, the best way out is to call everybody who notes it “racist.” “All Americans have a duty to call out this hateful rhetoric when we hear it,” she said.  Listening to Omar lecture people about calling out hateful rhetoric is truly an amazing and astonishing thing.

WASHINGTON—In a town where access is everything, if you want to be influential, you have to go to all the right events. It’s why people lined up for hours in the freezing cold to get into last year’s Inaugural Balls. It’s why, as we speak, congressional staffers and think tank flaks are jockeying to get invites to all the swankiest Christmas parties. And it’s why a couple of legacy media outlets are reportedly spinning their wheels to get invited to this Sunday’s Kennedy Center Honors. The Associated Press and New York Times “are scrambling and begging” for press credentials just days before the event, Kennedy Center Vice President of Public Relations Roma Daravi wrote on X this week. “The date didn’t sneak up on anyone,” she added. “They knew it was coming. They just didn’t bother.” The @AP and @nytimes are scrambling and begging for @kencen Honors press credentials at the last minute. 3 days before the show… It’s the 48th Honors. The date didn’t sneak up on anyone. They knew it was coming. They just didn’t bother. — Roma Daravi (@romadaravi) December 4, 2025 This year’s class of honorees includes Michael Crawford, the Tony Award-winning singer who originated the titular role of the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway; disco legend Gloria Gaynor and country music star George Strait; “Rocky” star Sylvester Stallone; and the band KISS. The Kennedy Center Honors are always a star-studded affair, and this year is no exception. Expected guests include Tommy Hilfiger, Kurt Russell, and Garth Brooks, The Daily Caller reported this week. Inside-the-Beltway VIPs include House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. President Donald Trump will host this year’s honors in lieu of a celebrity master of ceremonies. First Lady Melania Trump is also expected to be in attendance. This year also marks the debut of new medals for honorees, designed exclusively for the Kennedy Center by Tiffany & Co. This year’s honors, which will air on CBS on December 23, come at a pivotal time for the Kennedy Center. Trump has made overhauling the cultural institution a priority in his second term, as The Daily Wire has chronicled extensively. Trump and Kennedy Center Director Richard Grenell have pushed to rectify the Kennedy Center’s financial situation and revamp its offerings. The Trump administration’s reform efforts have made the Kennedy Center a political flashpoint. Recently, Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (RI) claimed that the Center was “being looted to the tune of millions of dollars in foregone revenue, cancelled programming, unpaid use of its facilities, and wasteful spending on luxury restaurants and hotels — an unprecedented pattern of self-dealing, favoritism, and waste.” “The press and the Senator should be ashamed of the lies they print and reprint — we want a cultural center for all Americans but they push lies to sow division amongst Americans for their selfish moment in a headline,” Daravi said in response to Whitehouse’s allegations. Sources close to the matter tell The Daily Wire that the Times and the AP claim they missed the email inviting them to apply for press credentials. While neither outlet responded to a request for comment, Daravi addressed the missed email claims, saying simply, “They’ve had 48 years to prepare.” Full disclosure: The Daily Wire will be in attendance at the 48th Kennedy Center Honors. We didn’t miss the email.