John James

Congress struck a major blow against TikTok's Chinese ownership Thursday morning, by passing the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would require parent company ByteDance to sell its US entity within six months in order to retain access to American app stores and web hosting services. The bill, passed by a 352-65 margin, now heads to the Senate. It offered a rare time that former president Donald Trump found himself allied with progressive members of the Squad in opposition, while Representatives Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries joined forces in voting for the bill, which would help combat the espionage concerns that intelligence officials in the Biden administration have repeatedly raised.

Forget boy math, forget girl math: focus on Speaker Math: getting anywhere near the magic threshold of 217 votes is proving almost impossible for any Republican. Back in January, even former speaker Kevin McCarthy couldn’t get to 217, clinching the gavel with 216 votes after some of his then-foes threw him a bone by simply voting present and therefore lowering the threshold. At that point though, he never dipped below 200 votes in his marathon bid to secure the speakership. Now, it’s former McCarthy foe turned McCarthy ally Jim Jordan who’s finding that getting to 217 is somehow almost harder than getting over 200. Following a second public ballot, Jordan is losing votes at a time when he needs momentum.