Kid Rock gives explanation for why celebrities are now openly supporting Trump
Kid Rock got the party going at President-elect Trump’s MAGA Victory Rally on Sunday afternoon, performing “Sweet Home Alabama” to kick-start his set at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.
Followed by a performance of his pointed 2022 song, “We The People,” which includes lyrics like “We all bleed red, brother, listen to me/It’s time for love and unity,” the rocker left the stage to fans chanting “U-S-A.”
Ahead of the performance, the singer stopped by “Fox & Friends Weekend” to speak about the palpable shift in energy he’s felt in the nation’s capital and Hollywood.
TRUMP INAUGURATION: CARRIE UNDERWOOD, KID ROCK, JASON ALDEAN LEAD MUSICAL LINEUP
“It feels like the rebirth of our nation,” the musician, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, told hosts Lawrence Jones, Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade. “Felt like that at the UFC fight after the election, everybody was together, you know, walking to the ring,” he said of the championship fight that featured Trump supporters like Elon Musk and Dana White, as well as the rocker, to New York City.
“There’s just this overwhelming sense … you’ve heard it a million times, that America’s back,” the “Born Free” singer explained.
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Kid Rock also spoke about how, since Trump had secured the Oval Office in November, Hollywood has seemed to embrace him as the nation’s leader, less reluctant to voice their support.
“Now they feel it’s safe to go in the water after dipping their toe in it for four to eight years,” he joked. “I mean, welcome to the party, like I’ve said. Better to have them on board than not,” he added.
Carrie Underwood, known to be removed from the political scene, stunned some when it was announced last week that she’d be performing “America The Beautiful” at Trump’s inauguration: “I love our country and am honored to have been asked to sing at the inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event,” the country superstar said in a statement.
Jason Aldean, a longtime Trump supporter, was also tapped to play at the Liberty Ball, as well as rapper Nelly.
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Actors Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight were made “special ambassadors” to the “great, but very troubled place, Hollywood, California,” by Trump last week, all of whom have had either favorable things to say publicly about Trump or have been supporters. Voight was also in attendance at Sunday’s rally.
“There’s a whole change in the air, there’s a whole shift in everything,” Kid Rock continued.
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“[People] saw what he did the first time. And when you really look at the facts and the numbers and how great it was, and it’s only going to be better from there. The feeling’s everywhere,” he said. “Especially if you’re on our side – it’s through the roof. But I think people, all reasonable people, I feel, you know, are understanding, just if we would have got a reasonable Democrat.”
“Like, it’s OK … we think differently on a lot of things, but if you’re a reasonable person, and I really got to stress ‘reasonable,’ because Lord knows there are some fruitcakes out there.”
WATCH: KID ROCK: THERE’S A ‘WHOLE CHANGE IN THE AIR’ AHEAD OF TRUMP INAUGURATION
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Trump takes shot at ABC presidential debate moderator over crime rates fact-check
President-elect Donald Trump took a shot at ABC News’ David Muir when recalling his claim that “violent crime is coming down” during the ABC Presidential Debate in September.
During his pre-inauguration rally Sunday, Trump acknowledged the “hundreds and even thousands of victims” of migrant crime, remarking that crime was on the rise even without illegal immigrants.
Trump then recalled how Muir fact-checked him during his presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris in September.
“Do you remember I did the debate, and I had David Muir from ABC saying, ‘No, no crime has gone down.’ I said, ‘No, no, it‘s gone through the roof.’ Crime has gone through the roof. David [said] no, no crime has gone down. I said it‘s gone through the roof. And then he goes, ‘Uh, I disagree with that.’ The next day they announced that crime was up like 40%. This guy is…the whole thing is so bad,” Trump said.
ABC’S DAVID MUIR DISMISSES POST-DEBATE ‘NOISE’ ABOUT MODERATORS
Muir, who served as co-moderator with Linsey Davis at the time, insisted during the debate that Trump was not accurate when he claimed that crime was “through the roof.”
“President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country,” Muir said.
“The FBI — they were defrauding statements. They didn’t include the worst cities. They didn’t include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud,” Trump responded.
While ABC News did not announce crime was up “the next day,” an FBI revision one month later in October appeared to vindicate Trump’s original comments. After initially reporting that violent crime was down by 2.1% in 2022, the FBI later admitted there was a 4.5% increase with a net total of about 80,029 more violent crimes in 2022 over 2021.
Muir did not acknowledge the change on his show “World News Tonight” after the revision was released.
Fox News Digital reached out to ABC News for a comment.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Muir for fact-checking him during the debate while ignoring Harris.
ABC’S DAVID MUIR SEES NEWSCAST RATINGS DECLINE AFTER CONTROVERSIAL DEBATE PERFORMANCE
“And during the debate, I mentioned that and David Muir, a real lightweight,” Trump said in September. “I had one against three, but I think we did great. But David Muir of ABC, fake news, when I said that crime is way up in our country, he corrected me, he corrected me and so much and it was right what I said. He didn’t correct [Vice President Kamala Harris] one time, and what she said was wrong, absolutely wrong. So many different— Charlottesville, she was wrong, all of the different things, almost everything she said, and she was never corrected.
“But he corrected me on crime. He said, ‘No, no, crime has not gone up.’ I said crime has gone up massively. He said, ‘I’d like to state for the record that crime has not gone up,'” Trump said.
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Florida sheriff gives illegal immigrants a recommendation ahead of Trump inauguration
A Florida sheriff is combating illegal immigration by sharing a bold statement with those who are in the state illegally ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration.
“And I leave with this message: ‘Southbound and down.’ Do it yourself. You can self-deport and avoid a lot of prison sentence, but it’s time. Southbound and down,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Grady was joined by Gov. Ron DeSantis and several other local and state officials during the press conference held Winter Haven to discuss actions to combat illegal immigration.
Judd said a crackdown on illegal immigration would help reduce crime.
FLORIDA PROPOSAL WOULD BAR ILLEGAL MIGRANTS IN THE US FROM ATTENDING SOME COLLEGES
“Florida needs to set the example for the other states and support the president [Trump] to get rid of these criminals who are victimizing our people,” Judd said.
During the press conference, Judd also shared several specific examples of crimes involving illegal immigrants, including cases of murder, DUI manslaughter and organized theft rings.
DeSantis echoed Judd and said he was confident that the second Trump administration would take swift action against the outgoing Biden administration’s immigration policy.
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“We in Florida have a sense of urgency to accomplish this mission,” DeSantis said. “The mission is very simple: We need to end the illegal immigration crisis once and for all in these United States of America.”
Florida sued the Biden administration on several different occasions, including over its “illegal” catch-and-release policies at the southern border and, most recently, its alleged refusal to help the state purge noncitizens from voter rolls in the 2024 election.
FLORIDA HUMAN TRAFFICKING STING NABS 157 PEOPLE, INCLUDING 25 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
DeSantis scheduled a special session to begin the week after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration to fund efforts to address illegal immigration, including detention and relocation. The governor has said the state must work to support Trump’s promises to tackle illegal immigration and ensure that “we don’t have any lingering incentives for people to come into our state illegally.”
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In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump thanked DeSantis for calling a special session, saying “hopefully other Governors will follow!”
Top House Dem confronted on if he misled Americans about Biden as a candidate
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., was confronted with an old clip of himself during an interview on Sunday in which he declared President Biden was the best candidate to run against President-elect Donald Trump.
“What do you say to Americans who believe you and other top Democrats misled them?” NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Jeffires after playing him a clip of himself from February 2024 on “The View” saying Biden was the “definitely the strongest candidate” to run against the now-president elect.
“Well, Joe Biden was the incumbent president at the time. He was the candidate at the time, and I supported him at the time, and that was the right thing to do, based on the incumbent president making the decision that he was going to run,” Jeffries said, responding to the clip.
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Jeffries added that he wanted to look forward, rather than backwards, and focus on delivering for Americans after Trump’s victory.
Welker pressed further, “Do you believe you had a responsibility to be more forthcoming about what you had seen behind closed doors as it relates to President Biden?”
“What I saw behind closed doors was a president who was working hard to get things done to deliver for the American people on infrastructure, on driving down the high price of life saving prescription drugs, on bringing domestic manufacturing jobs back home to the United States of America,” Jeffries responded.
The NBC News host similarly confronted Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., with a clip of himself insisting concerns about Biden’s mental acuity were “right wing propaganda.”
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“His mental acuity is great. It’s fine. It’s as good as it’s been over the years. All this right-wing propaganda that his mental acuity has declined is wrong,” Schumer declared in February 2024.
When asked what he would tell Americans who think they were misled by top Democrats, Schumer said, “”We didn’t. Let’s look at President Biden. He’s had an amazing record. The legislation we passed, one of the most significant groups of legislation since Lyndon Johnson’s great society, putting in 235 judges, a record, and he’s a patriot.”
Welker then asked Schumer if he was confident Biden could have served a second term.
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“Well I’m not going to speculate. As I said, I think his record is a stellar one, and he’ll go down in history as a really outstanding president,” Schumer responded.
Clint Eastwood’s son shares update on 94-year-old dad after longtime partner’s death
Six months after Clint Eastwood‘s longtime girlfriend, Christina Sandera, died, the 94-year-old’s son is sharing a rare update on how the veteran actor has been holding up.
In a new interview, Scott Eastwood opened up about his dad’s grief journey thus far.
“He’s good. He’s doing good,” Scott told People magazine. “He’s a survivor, a trouper.”
In July, Clint announced that his girlfriend of ten years had died.
CLINT EASTWOOD’S DAUGHTER REMEMBERS STAR’S LONGTIME GIRLFRIEND AFTER HER DEATH AT 61: ‘A DEVASTATING LOSS’
“Christina was a lovely, caring woman, and I will miss her very much,” he said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter at the time.
A few days later, Clint’s daughter, Morgan Eastwood, shared a photo with the couple, noting the “devastating” loss.
“A devastating loss for our whole family,” Morgan wrote of Sandera, who died at the age of 61 on July 18. “Thank you Christina for being a good partner to my Dad. You will be missed.”
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Sandera’s cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia, the Monterey, California, County Department of Health said in a death certificate obtained by Fox News Digital.
Eastwood and Sandera kept their relationship private over the last decade. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the pair first met when Sandera was employed as a host at Eastwood’s Mission Ranch Hotel and Restaurant in Northern California in 2014.
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Sandera, who was a longtime resident of Carmel-By-The-Sea, California — where Eastwood’s hotel is located — attended red carpet events with her boyfriend. The last event the couple attended together was the world premiere of Eastwood’s film, “Richard Jewell,” in 2018.
The award-winning actor and director is a father of eight: Laurie Murray, Kimber Eastwood, Kyle Eastwood, Alison Eastwood, Scott Eastwood, Kathryn Eastwood, Francesca Eastwood and Morgan Eastwood.
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Clint was married twice. His first marriage was to model Maggie Johnson from 1953-64. The former couple didn’t finalize their divorce until 1984. He then married Dina Ruiz in 1996, and the couple divorced in 2014.
On the eve of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, a multi-million dollar network of socialist and Islamist organizations scaled back its plans for a massive citywide “resistance,” retreating to a quiet park in a corner of Washington, D.C., called Meridian Hill. They now predict a crowd of 2,000, a far cry from the 50,000 originally planned for the National Mall, Washington Monument and Constitution Avenue NW.
But the network of well-funded organizations, which I call the Woke Army, is pressing ahead with protests in 84 cities, rebranded in emails sent Sunday afternoon to supporters with the message, “STAND WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. WE FIGHT BACK,” following Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas. In the nation’s capital, the ANSWER Coalition, a self-declared Marxist organization based in D.C., secured a permit, which I obtained, for the smaller Meridian Hill protest after withdrawing its application for the larger citywide demonstration.
THE PROFESSIONAL PROTEST MACHINE BEHIND THE ANTI-TRUMP ‘PEOPLE’S MARCH’
Despite media portrayals of these protests as grassroots movements, they are anything but. The ANSWER Coalition’s operations are highly coordinated and funded by professional activism networks, much like Saturday’s “People’s March,” which my reporting revealed was organized by a for-profit professional protest logistics company, Movement Catalyst LLC, which executes events with military precision.
These professional organizers create a polished veneer of “grassroots” spontaneity for protests that are, in reality, meticulously engineered political theater and not grassroots but rather AstroTurf. They churned out near identical emails around 4 p.m. on Sunday, summoning followers to their Monday protests.
For years now, I’ve been tracking these organizations as part of my reporting for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative named for Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002 in the name of identity politics and sectarianism. Democracy thrives on transparency, and the public deserves to know when protests are driven by ideological agendas masquerading as grassroots movements.
Members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation created the ANSWER Coalition, short for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism,” after 9/11. It has consistently championed authoritarian regimes, including socialist governments in Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea, and Cuba. Brian Becker, the ANSWER Coalition leader who got the permit for the Meridian Hill protest, is a vocal proponent of Marxism and socialism.
The organization’s history includes inflammatory anti-American incidents, such as a protest this past summer against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Zaid Mohammed Mahdawi, president of the Richmond chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, spray-painted “HAMAS IS COMIN” on a statue at Union Station. The National Park Service pulled ANSWER Coalition’s permit after the protest turned violent, with demonstrators burning U.S. flags and clashing with police.
Michael Litterst, a spokesman for the U.S. National Park Service, told me today that the ANSWER Coalition “canceled” its application for the citywide protest. He directed questions to the ANSWER Coalition about why it canceled its application. The ANSWER Coalition didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The permit reveals the intricate planning behind this supposed “grassroots” protest that the media will likely cast as spontaneous:
- 7 a.m.: “Load in equipment to the upper level of Meridian Hill Park.”
- 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: “Speeches and possible acoustic music.”
- 12:30 p.m. to 12:45 p.m.: “Organize for march.”
- 12:45 p.m.: “March steps off (south on 16th Street to H Street at Black Lives Matter Plaza),” near the White House.
- 12:45 p.m. to 4 p.m.: “Remove equipment from Meridian Hill Park.”
The equipment list reveals the professionalism behind these protests: one stage, 20 tables, 40 chairs, 200 handheld signs, banners, a sound system, podium, and propaganda materials, including literature and bumper stickers. The ANSWER Coalition permit said it plans to bring an “opaque secure bucket for collecting donations.”
Behind the banners and bullhorns lies a well-funded operation intent on reshaping the narrative of grassroots resistance into one that serves its own ideological goals.
The Park Service permit reminded organizers in bold text: “It is prohibited to climb, remove, or in any way injure any statue, seat, wall, fountain, light poles, elevator towers, or other architectural feature” within the park.
The ANSWER Coalition’s history raises questions about its ability to maintain order. But Litterst, the U.S. National Park Service spokesman, told me: “DC courts have previously indicated that denial of or limitations on permits for First Amendment demonstrations based on contemplated acts of violence are appropriate only when and where the threat is real, substantial and beyond the reasonable control of law enforcement.”
Last week, on a website created just days after Trump’s election, protest organizers said they had about 50 “endorsing” groups. Now, that number has increased to 205 groups, and it’s clear from the names on the growing list that their origins are far from grassroots. I’ve added the new names to a public Pearl Project public database, and, according to my new analysis, 58 of the groups are self-described socialist organizations, 25 are Islamist, Muslim, Arab or Palestinian, and the remaining 122 are socialist and Islamist adjacent. They consistently seek to destroy Israel as a state.
The “red” in tomorrow’s alliance includes well-funded protesters: the ANSWER Coalition; Code Pink, an anti-Israel group funded by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based American billionaire tied to China’s Communist Party, according to the New York Times; the Party for Socialism and Liberation, advocating for dismantling capitalism and aligning the U.S. with socialist regimes; the People’s Forum, a socialist group that serves as a proxy for Singham’s pro-China agenda, as also documented by The New York Times; and Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the U.S.
It also now includes the “Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International.”
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The “green” of this axis includes: Students for Justice in Palestine, founded by University of California at Berkeley academic Hatem Bazian, and now fomenting many of the anti-Jew campus protests, banned now on many campuses; Palestinian Feminist Collective, committed to “Palestinian liberation & beyond“; Palestinian Youth Movement, dedicated to a “strategy of mobilization, agitation and confrontation“; the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, which organized days of protests in Chicago to disrupt the Democratic Party’s convention; and the Muslim American Society, which created a “Survive Pack” with a resource from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose co-founder, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy” about the Oct. 7 incursions by Hamas into Israel.
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The ANSWER Coalition’s stated purpose for the protest in Washington is to “present a popular resistance to the Trump Administration,” but its true agenda is more insidious: dismantling American democracy and promoting authoritarian socialist ideologies. From Beijing to Caracas, the ANSWER Coalition and its Woke Army allies draw inspiration from regimes, like Hamas, that suppress dissent and curtail freedoms.
As the Woke Army marches from Meridian Hill Park to Black Lives Matter Plaza, it’s crucial for Americans to remain vigilant. Behind the banners and bullhorns lies a well-funded operation intent on reshaping the narrative of grassroots resistance into one that serves its own ideological goals. Understanding these forces is the first step toward safeguarding democracy.
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Trump saves TikTok day before he’s sworn-in as company makes pro-America promise
TikTok said it was in the process of restoring operations in the U.S. Sunday, after President-elect Trump promised to issue an executive order to extend TikTok operations on Inauguration Day.
U.S. users reported being able to regain access to the app following Saturday’s blackout, and by Sunday afternoon, a new message crediting Trump appeared to users.
“Welcome back!” the TikTok message read. “Thank you for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”
Earlier Sunday, Trump wrote on TRUTH Social that he is “asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!”
TIKTOK SHOUTS OUT TRUMP AS APP GOES DARK FOR MILLIONS OF USERS ACROSS US
“I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security,” the president-elect continued. “The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”
“Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations,” Trump said.
Trump is expected to be sworn in around noon ET Monday at the U.S. Capitol, officially taking office as the 47th president.
His Sunday post did not clarify how soon the extension would take effect or specify how long it would last.
As for the proposed national security deal, Trump said he would like “the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture.”
“By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to [stay] up. Without U.S. approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, my initial thought is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners whereby the U.S. gets a 50% ownership in a joint venture set up between the U.S. and whichever purchase we so choose.”
TikTok’s account on X dedicated to releasing policy updates posted a statement later Sunday saying: “In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service.”
“We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive,” the statement said. “It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.”
Apple and Google’s app stores no longer had the TikTok app available as of 10:50 p.m. EST Saturday. President Biden signed a bipartisan law last spring mandating that TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, sell the platform by Sunday or else the platform would be banned in the United States.
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The following pop-up message appeared for users who tried to access the TikTok app earlier Sunday: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!” the message added.
Earlier Sunday, Trump issued a two-word message on TRUTH Social: “SAVE TIKTOK!”
Instead of utilizing the nine-month grace period to sell TikTok to an approved buyer, ByteDance, as well as TikTok, sued.
The law was upheld Friday by the U.S. Supreme Court, which pointed to national security risks due to the app’s connection to China.
Trump previously indicated that he must “review” the ban before choosing a course of action and that he’d “most likely” grant TikTok a 90-day extension from the Jan. 19 deadline.
Under the law, the sitting president can extend the deadline by 90 days if a sale is in progress. ByteDance has previously rebuffed the idea of selling TikTok.
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In a video posted on Friday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew praised Trump for his “commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States. This is a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”