Trump returns as turbulent year ends

The violence continued on Sept 15 when Ryan Wesley Routh allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump at a golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Armed with a rifle, Routh hid in shrubbery near the golf course where Trump was playing. A Secret Service agent fired four shots, forcing Routh to flee before he was later apprehended.

He now faces five federal charges, including attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate. Routh has pleaded not guilty, with his trial scheduled for September. If convicted, he could face a life sentence.

Despite these dramatic events, Trump triumphed in the Nov 5 election, securing 312 electoral votes to Harris' 226, well above the 270 needed for victory. In the popular vote, Trump garnered 77,302,440 votes, while Harris received 75,017,312.Republicans also took control of the Senate with a 53-47 majority and maintained a slight advantage in the House of Representatives, 220-215.

Trump's election served as a wakeup call for mainstream media, as most polls had inaccurately predicted a dead heat.

Trump filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register newspaper in Iowa and its former top pollster over a poll published three days before the election that showed Harris leading in the traditionally Republican state. Trump ultimately won Iowa with 55.7 percent of votes.

This legal action came shortly after ABC News agreed to settle a defamation case brought by Trump. The network donated $15 million to his presidential library and publicly apologized for anchor George Stephanopoulos' false claim that Trump had been found liable for rape.

Traditional media outlets continued to lose influence to alternative platforms such as X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, a vocal Trump supporter, as well as to talk radio and podcasts.

Musk's posts on X even led to the scuttling of a continuing resolution to fund the federal budget. On Dec 20, Congress eventually agreed to fund the government via continuing resolution until March.

Trump has named Musk to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

TikTok saga

TikTok, the immensely popular video-sharing platform, has had an eventful 2024.

In the spring, Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — which Biden signed into law — requiring ByteDance, TikTok's Beijing-based parent company, to divest the platform by Jan 19 or face a ban, citing national security concerns.

However, Trump, a former critic of the platform with 170 million US users, is now seeking a political resolution to allow TikTok to continue operating.

On Dec 27, Trump's legal team filed a brief with the Supreme Court, requesting a pause on the ban until his administration can address the matter politically. The brief said Trump opposes banning TikTok at this time and "seeks the ability to resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office".

Days earlier, on Dec 22, Trump indicated he favored allowing TikTok to keep operating in the US for at least "a little while", saying he had received billions of views on the platform during his presidential campaign.

ByteDance has consistently challenged the legislation, arguing it violates free speech rights. TikTok maintains that its recommendation engine and user data are stored on Oracle-operated US servers and that moderation decisions affecting US users are made domestically.

Despite these assurances, a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the statute on Dec 6, prompting TikTok to appeal to the Supreme Court, which agreed on Dec 18 to hear the case, with oral arguments scheduled for Friday.

In a significant development, Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at the former's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Dec 16.