The incoming Trump administration should embrace a more muscular approach to counter China’s increasingly aggressive behavior in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The stakes could not be higher. Absent a major course correction, Beijing will continue to make diplomatic and military gains at our expense and the risk of war will increase. 

By meddling in our elections, embedding itself in our national infrastructure, browbeating our allies, and continuing its massive military buildup, China has advanced its interests and diminished America’s credibility. The Biden administration’s muted response has served only to encourage further aggression. 

Consider, for example, China’s adventurism in the South China Sea. In addition to fortifying its manmade islands, which are now bristling with weapons, China has repeatedly rammed, fired lasers, and shot water cannons at Filipino fishermen and coast guardsmen operating in Filipino waters. 

China’s warships and fighters have also buzzed U.S. warships and aircraft well over 100 times in the past few years, according to the Pentagon’s most recent report on China. Yet this reckless behavior has elicited little more than furrowed brows and finger wags from U.S. officials.   

China continues to browbeat Taiwan with an unrelenting stream of menacing maneuvers aimed at coercion. The People’s Liberation Army has normalized such large exercises to the point that Taiwanese officials have expressed concern they could provide cover for an actual invasion. 

China’s aggression extends well beyond the Indo-Pacific region, even putting Americans at risk right here at home. China has already penetrated our key national infrastructure, such as pipelines and electrical grids with its cyber intrusions. In the event of conflict, China is ready to pounce with ‘low blows’ against our citizenry, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray.  

China’s provocations extended to our 2024 presidential election. The intelligence community recently publicized China’s efforts to hack into the phones of both presidential campaigns, including then-candidates Donald Trump and JD Vance. This comes on top of intelligence community revelations that China has actively sought to influence key congressional races with its influence operations, thus striking at the heart of our electoral process. 

The Biden administration has said precious little in response to these disclosures. This sets a bad precedent. Passive responses today will engender more aggression in the future, which will make outright conflict with China more likely.  

The underlying problem is that the Biden administration has placed undue emphasis on ‘competition’ with China. This metaphor is seriously misplaced. Ping pong players ‘compete’ according to agreed-upon rules and gentlemanly norms of sportsmanship. Yet China is a rule-breaker that clearly has no interest in playing nice. Instead of playing games, Beijing seeks to refashion the international order in its image. 

The Biden administration has spilled rivers of ink explaining its theory of ‘integrated deterrence,’ which it announced with great fanfare with the release of its 2022 National Defense Strategy. For the most part, this was simply a repackaging of old ideas. China remains unimpressed and undeterred, as its catalogue of aggression indicates.           

Restoring deterrence requires a more robust U.S. approach – one that does not shy away from confronting China with targeted measures when and where necessary. Slapping China with tariffs is a good start. So is ramping up freedom of navigation exercises with U.S. warships in the South China Sea. Trump should also take any potential summit with President Xi off the table until China stops menacing Taiwan with its provocative exercises. 

To preserve the peace, the U.S. must also better prepare for outright conflict with China. This includes providing the military with the tools necessary to defeat the PLA quickly and decisively if conflict erupts. It means sharpening war plans and formulating strategies that target the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to control not only its military forces, but also its own people.  

China’s provocations extended to our 2024 presidential election. The intelligence community recently publicized China’s efforts to hack into the phones of both presidential campaigns, including then-candidates Donald Trump and JD Vance. 

All this will require more resources. Defense budgets that fail to keep pace with inflation will no longer suffice. Congress must increase defense spending on a sustained basis in real terms. 

Weakness invites provocation. Outdated notions of deterrence and competition no longer suffice to keep the dragon at bay. Military strength and political resolve are needed to reduce the risk of conflict.  

It is time to confront China. 

The tumultuous two years of the 118th Congress are likely to be capped by one more standoff over government spending.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., signaled to Fox News Digital that it was unlikely Republicans will move to kick fiscal 2025 federal funding discussions into the new year.

But he reiterated vows that House Republicans would fight against rolling all 12 annual appropriations bills into one large ‘omnibus’ package, setting up a possible showdown with Senate Democrats.

‘The ideal scenario would be we get an agreement for the remainder of the fiscal year,’ Scalise said.

He cited constraints on national security if Congress were to simply extend fiscal 2024 funding levels.

‘When you think about defense funding, it costs us money to have short-term funding bills when you cannot do long-term procurement, to buy the kind of long-range defense systems that we need to compete with China,’ Scalise said. ‘China is not operating on short-term spending bills, neither should we.’

Before recessing in September, House Republicans and Senate Democrats agreed to extend fiscal 2024 funding levels through what’s known as a continuing resolution (CR) to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

That bought congressional negotiators through Dec. 20 to hash out a deal.

At the time, several supporters of President-elect Donald Trump demanded that the CR run into the new year in the hopes a new Republican administration would take the reins, something opposed by senior GOP lawmakers and national security hawks.

If Republicans win the House in addition to the Senate and White House, Trump will have a say over how a GOP-controlled Congress handles spending in the fall next year. A number of House races remain undecided days after Tuesday’s general election.

Scalise also cited several other priorities, like the border crisis and extending tax cuts, that will take up much of the beginning of Trump’s term.

As for this year’s negotiations, however, both sides are still far apart.

House Republicans have accused Senate Democrats of slow-walking the process without having passed any of their own spending bills on the floor in a bid to force the GOP to swallow an end-of-year ‘omnibus’ with excess spending and little transparency.

Democrats have in turn criticized House Republicans’ spending bills, several of which passed the House floor, as pushing draconian cuts and conservative policies deemed ‘non-starters.’

‘We have a lot of conversations to have with our members about the best approach,’ Scalise said. ‘When we had left, we had already passed over 70% of the government funding bills through the House, and the Senate hadn’t passed any.’

‘We’re trying to get agreements on the individual bills. That’s why the House did our job … hopefully we can start getting those agreements when we return.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., about whether he anticipates an omnibus, which he has ushered through the Senate nearly every year he’s been majority leader, at the end of this year.

If an agreement is not reached by Dec. 20, the country could face a partial government shutdown just weeks before the new presidential administration.

Vice President Harris suffered a massive loss to President-elect Donald Trump this week, losing her campaign as Trump swept battleground and traditionally Republican states alike that catapulted him past the needed 270 electoral college votes. 

Harris’ truncated campaign cycle, which only launched toward the end of July after President Biden dropped out of the race and passed the torch to his VP, was marked by a handful of gaffes and missteps that haunted her efforts to court voters and became political fodder for Trump and his campaign. 

Fox News Digital examined Harris’ roughly 100-day campaign and compiled the vice president’s biggest campaign mistakes that likely cost her support at the ballot box. 

Harris declares she would not do anything differently than President Biden

In what was arguably Harris’ biggest campaign misstep, the vice president declared early in October while appearing on ‘The View’ that she could not think of an example of where she differed with President Biden on a policy decision or political position across the administration. 

‘If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?’ 

‘There is not a thing that comes to mind,’ Harris answered.

Harris’ comment stands in stark contrast to how voters were feeling: They were unhappy with the current administration’s leadership.  

Preliminary data from the Fox News Voter Analysis, a survey of more than 110,000 voters nationwide, found that the majority of voters headed into the polls believing the country was headed in the wrong direction. 

Voters ahead of casting their ballots reported that the country was on the wrong track (70%, up from 60% who felt that way four years ago) and seeking something different. Most wanted a change in how the country is run, with roughly a quarter seeking complete and total upheaval.

‘Kamala Harris is more of the same,’ Vice President-elect JD Vance posted to X last month about Harris’ comment on ‘The View.’ ‘She admits it herself.’

‘This will be the nail in Kamala Harris’s coffin,’ The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis predicted last month. 

‘It reminds me of John Kerry’s ‘I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it’ comment about Iraq war funding when he was fighting charges of being a spineless flip-flopper,’ he added. ‘That single comment ended his campaign.’

Harris accused of using ‘new accent’ during campaign events; ‘word salad’ gaffes 

Harris was accused a handful of times of unveiling a ‘new accent’ while speaking to different voters across the country, including critics comparing her to a cartoon character at one point and a preacher at another campaign event. 

Harris traveled to the Church of Christian Compassion in Philadelphia last month, where she spoke to the predominantly Black congregants and telling them that in just nine days, voters will ‘have the power to decide the fate of our nation for generations to come.’

Harris cited the Book of Psalms in her remarks, including saying, ‘Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the mornin’. The path may seem hard, the work may seem heavy, but joy cometh in the mornin’ and church morning is on its way.’ 

Critics on social media pounced on clips of Harris quoting Psalms, saying she debuted a new ‘pastor’ accent, comparing her inflection to the late Rev. Martin Luther King’s oratory.

While speaking before union workers during a Detroit Labor Day rally, she was criticized for using an accent that was compared to ‘Foghorn Leghorn.’

‘Since when does the vice president have what sounds like a Southern accent?’ Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in September after her Detroit speech that was compared to the cartoon character. 

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Jean-Pierre replied.

‘Well, she was talking about unions in Detroit using one tone of voice, she used the same line in Pittsburgh, and it sounded like she at least had some kind of Southern drawl,’ Doocy pressed.

‘I mean, do you hear the question that you’re – I mean, do you think Americans seriously think that this is an important question?’ Jean-Pierre pushed back. ‘You know what they care about? They care about the economy, they care about lowering costs, they care about health care. That’s what they want to hear … democracy and freedom … I’m not going to even entertain some question about … it’s just … hearing it sounds so ridiculous. The question – I’m talking about the question – is just insane.’

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a native of Chicago, has also repeatedly been accused of employing different accents across her decades in the public eye, most notably for using a southern drawl.

Harris was also slammed for rambling ‘word salads’ during repeated public events, which the Trump campaign and critics frequently mocked. 

‘We need to guard that spirit. We have to guard that spirit. Let it always inspire us. Let it always be the source of our optimism, which is that spirit that is uniquely American. Let that then inspire us by helping us to be inspired to solve the problems that so many face, including our small business owners,’ Harris said, for example, in September while speaking to the Economic Club of Pittsburgh. 

‘I grew up understanding the children of the community are the children of the community, and we should all have a vested interest in ensuring that children can go grow up with the resources that they need to achieve their God-given potential,’ she said at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 47th annual Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., in September. 

In another ‘word salad’ misstep just days ahead of the election, Harris said, ‘We are here because we are fighting for a democracy. Fighting for a democracy. And understand the difference here, understand the difference here, moving forward, moving forward, understand the difference here.’

Harris avoids the media for weeks, fails to hold a press conference 

Harris carried out her 107-day campaign without holding a single press conference, and she avoided sit-down media interviews for the first 38 days of her campaign before finally joining CNN for an interview. 

Trump held at least six news conferences in which he took questions from the media since the beginning of August. Harris held none, but did have a few informal press gaggles throughout the campaign.

The Harris-Walz campaign increased their media presence in the final weeks of the campaign, including Harris joining a CNN town hall and interviews with NBC News, Telemundo and CBS, in addition to several podcasts and local news stations. She also sat down with Fox News’ Bret Baier last month, which Baier described as a ‘contentious’ interview. 

Touted celebrity endorsements in campaign events 

Harris repeatedly leaned on celebrities during the campaign, including touting their star status for flash rallies. 

Harris held a rally last month in red Texas where she was joined by celebrities such as Beyoncé, Jessica Alba and Willie Nelson. Harris’ rally included an estimated 30,000 people as word spread that Beyoncé was slated to appear at the rally. The pop star officially endorsed Harris during her appearance but did not perform any songs.

Ahead of the rally, media outlets such as MSNBC reported Beyoncé would not only appear but would also likely perform at the rally. Beyoncé did not perform, sparking the Trump campaign to argue that Harris ‘lied’ about Beyoncé’s appearance at the rally in order to ‘build a crowd.’

In Pennsylvania, which was viewed as the state that would likely determine the outcome of the overall election, Harris held a bevy of events on her final day on the campaign trail. She was joined at rallies in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia by celebrities such as Cedric the Entertainer, Katy Perry, Andra Day, DJ Cassidy, Fat Joe and Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga. 

‘The other thing that makes me nervous, in 2016 we had a big star-studded event right on the edge of the election, and we lost the state,’ liberal political analyst Van Jones said on CNN ahead of the election, referring to Harris’ Pennsylvania rallies. 

Harris’ steady support from celebrities comes as voters reported that the economy and jobs were their most important issues heading into the election as inflation since 2021 has throttled Americans’ pocketbooks. 

Lackluster VP selection 

After Biden’s exit from the race – as concerns mounted over his mental acuity and age – Harris simultaneously launched her campaign as well as her search for a running mate, combing through a list of high-profile Democrats and lesser-known allies before choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Democrats ultimately rallied behind Walz, but another choice, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, was viewed by many as the better candidate to get the Democratic Party across the finish line victoriously.

‘As a founding member of She Shoulda Picked Shapiro, I think it’s relatively clear now that she made a mistake,’ statistician Nate Silver told the New York Times ahead of Election Day. 

‘Pennsylvania seems to be lagging a little behind the other blue-wall states. Meanwhile, Walz was mediocre in the debate, and he’s been mediocre and nervous in his public appearances.’

Harris-Walz surrogate Lindy Li told Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich from Howard University, where Harris held her election night party, that Shapiro would likely have aided the Harris campaign’s efforts to notch a massive victory. 

‘One of the things that are top of mind is the choice of Tim Walz as vice presidential candidate,’ Li said. ‘A lot of people are saying tonight that it should have been Josh Shapiro. Frankly, people have been saying that for months.’

Considering Pennsylvania’s battleground-state status, the popular first-term governor was viewed as a potential key for the Harris campaign to reach the coveted 270 electoral votes to lock up the election. Shapiro, who is Jewish, was also touted as a potential bridge for the Harris campaign to court Jewish voters amid backlash over her previous comments defending anti-Israel protesters who rocked college campuses last year during the war in Israel.

Pennsylvania ultimately voted for Trump and moved him across the finish line.

Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood and David Rutz contributed to this report.

In her quest to become the first female president, Vice President Kamala Harris portrayed herself as a champion of women’s rights, putting abortion rights at the forefront of her campaign. 

But she fell short, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem explains in an interview, because in doing so, Harris and the Democrats failed to meet voters where they are. 

‘I think what was so interesting during this campaign is we consistently saw Kamala Harris and the Democrats try to put women in a box,’ Noem told Fox News Digital. ‘They tried to define women as only caring about abortion and their health care. They didn’t really give them due credit for being the individuals out there that are raising families and caring about their children’s education and paying their bills and pursuing their careers.’

Among the more surprising findings from the 2024 election is that Harris under-performed with women compared to President Biden’s support four years ago.

President-elect Trump prevailed Tuesday in a decisive victory, sweeping all the key battleground states and winning a majority in the national popular vote – the first time a Republican has done so in 20 years. Voter concerns about the economy and immigration propelled Trump’s triumphant return to the White House. But he also expanded his base with traditionally Democratic constituencies, including Black, Hispanic and young voters, according to the Fox News Voter Analysis. 

The election showcased many of the nation’s deep divides, particularly in gender. Men voted for Trump by 10 points, while women supported Harris by 8 points. The 18-point gender gap was slightly bigger than in the 2020 presidential election (17 points).

That widening was due to Trump improving 5 points among men since 2020. But Harris also under-performed with women compared to President Biden, who won the female vote by 12 points. 

Harris became the Democratic frontrunner after President Biden suspended his bid for re-election in July amid reports of his declining mental acuity in the wake of a poor debate performance against Trump in June. Biden quickly endorsed Harris, who made ‘reproductive rights’ a top issue on the campaign trail, a strategy that would ultimately not win over enough swing state voters. Harris was the Democrat nominee for only about four months.

GOP strategists told Fox News Digital that the Harris campaign’s abortion strategy was ineffective against Trump, who had argued the issue returned to the states after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

Noem added that abortion is just not the only priority for women in America.  She campaigned for Trump in Pennsylvania and other swing states, promoting his policies and taking questions from voters. 

‘We’ve got women running businesses that want their communities to be safe. They want to thrive. And they certainly don’t want a president that doesn’t protect women and the opportunities they have in front of them,’ she told Fox News Digital. 

The governor also criticized Harris’ team for ‘minimizing women’ in the closing weeks of the election, referencing how Harris surrogate Mark Cuban had said Trump never surrounds himself with ‘strong, intelligent women.’ 

‘They even went so far as to call women weak and dumb, you know, by their surrogtates. And I think that was offensive to many of us across the country,’ said Noem. 

She also said the Democrats’ far-left positions on abortion and transgender issues have made it easier for Republicans to take ‘common sense’ positions that most Americans agree with.

‘Kamala Harris and her Democratic Party have become more and more extreme on gender issues, on abortion. It’s easier for Republicans and our candidates and President Trump to use common sense to talk to the American people about truly how extreme the Democrats want to take this country and what we can do to make sure that every single person in this country, whether you’re a man or woman, that you get an opportunity,’ she said. 

The Trump campaign and associated political action committees leaned in to the culture wars with millions of dollars spent on ads that attacked Democrats and Harris as too liberal on gender issues.

‘Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you,’ one of Trump’s strongest attack ads concluded. The New York Times reported that Trump’s anti-trans ads shifted the race 2.7 percentage points in Trump’s favor after viewers watched it. 

Noem has also fought the culture wars. In South Dakota, she signed legislation that banned puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments and sex-change operations for transgender individuals under the age of 18. She has spoken repeatedly about keeping biological men who identify as transgender out of women’s sports and protecting opportunities for women and girls.

‘President Trump is not going to let mediocre men take away opportunities for our outstanding women,’ Noem said. It was Harris, she argued, who would have women on an ‘uncompetitive playing field.’ 

Asked if she had discussed joining the new administration, Noem said she had not had any conversations with the president-elect about a job. 

‘He knows I’ll help him any way that I can. But I spoke to him today, and he’s in great spirits. He’s looking forward to getting his administration set up. And I think he’s already getting phone calls from world leaders and working with people on his transition team to make sure that he’s ready to hit the ground running.’ 

‘I love being the governor of South Dakota,’ she added. ‘So we’ll continue to be a strong advocate for President Trump. He’s my friend, I’m so happy for him. And if he asks me to do something, well, we’ll make a decision at that time.’