From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Cohen

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcast host Joe Rogan on Friday that officials in President Joe Biden’s administration would yell and hurl profanities at his company’s employees over content censorship.

The Biden administration pushed Facebook to censor posts about COVID-19 that it deemed misinformation, according to documents published by House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan in July 2023. Zuckerberg, on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” revealed that also Meta faced investigations and backlash after Biden accused Facebook of “killing people” in July 2021 for not censoring so-called COVID-19 misinformation.

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“Basically, these people from the Biden Administration would call up our team and like scream at them and curse,” Zuckerberg said. “And it’s like these documents are — it’s all kind of out there.”

Rogan asked if Meta had recorded any of the calls, but Zuckerberg said he did not believe so.

“I mean, there are emails. The emails are published. It’s all kind of out there …. And basically, it just got to this point where we were like, ‘No, we’re not going to — we’re not going to take down things that are true. That’s ridiculous,’” Zuckerberh said. “They wanted us to take down this meme of Leonardo DiCaprio looking at a TV, talking about how ten years from now or something, you’re going to see an ad that says, ‘Okay, if you took a COVID vaccine, you’re eligible, like for this kind of payment,’ like this sort of like class-action lawsuit-type meme. And they’re like, ‘No, you have to take that down.’”

“We just said, ‘No, we’re not going to take down humor and satire. We’re not going to take down things that are true.’ And then at some point, I guess — I don’t know — it flipped a bit,” he added. “I mean, Biden, when he was — he gave some statement at some point, I don’t know if it was a press conference or to some journalist, where he basically was like, ‘These guys are killing people.’ And I don’t know. Then like all these different agencies and branches of government basically just like started investigating and coming after our company. It was brutal.”

Facebook executives believed they were engaged in a “knife fight” with Biden’s White House on COVID-19 censorship, according to a House Judiciary Committee report published in May.

Zuckerberg in August expressed remorse that Facebook caved to pressure from the Biden administration to censor content in a letter to Jordan. He wrote that senior Biden administration officials “repeatedly pressured” Facebook teams to censor COVID-19 content that the platform otherwise would not have suppressed, and voiced frustration when Facebook disagreed.

“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”

Zuckerberg also alleged in 2022 on “The Joe Rogan Experience” that the FBI warned Facebook of a “Russian propaganda” dump just before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke.

“The FBI basically came to us and some folks on our team and said, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert, we thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election and we have noticed that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that, so be vigilant,’” he said.

The Meta CEO said he could not recall whether the FBI specifically mentioned the Hunter Biden laptop story, but asserted it fit “the pattern.”

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Meta referred the DCNF to documents released by the House Judiciary Committee and Jordan.

Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gangbangers took control of apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado, in 2024

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Hopkins

The Biden administration rolled out deportation protections to nearly a million foreign nationals living in the United States, including hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.

More than 900,000 beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) will be allowed to register for an 18-month extension, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Friday. The massive roll out — just days before President Joe Biden leaves office and President-elect Donald Trump returns to power — includes TPS extensions for roughly 600,000 Venezuelans living in the country.

The extension came on the same day the U.S. government declared new sanctions against Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro. The deportation protections also follow growing anxiety over the presence of Tren de Aragua, an international crime syndicate that originated in Venezuela and has since wreaked havoc on American communities.

“The extension of TPS is due to extraordinary and temporary conditions that prevent eligible Venezuelan nationals from safely returning,” DHS said. “After reviewing the country conditions in Venezuela and consulting with interagency partners, it was determined that an 18-month TPS extension is warranted based on the severe humanitarian emergency the country continues to face due to political and economic crises under the inhumane Maduro regime.”

“These conditions have contributed to high levels of crime and violence, impacting access to food, medicine, healthcare, water, electricity, and fuel,” the DHS statement continued.

First established by the federal government in 1990, TPS provides certain deportation protections and work eligibility to those who receive its designation, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The White House may designate TPS for foreign nationals residing in the U.S. whose home countries are experiencing any number of situations that may make it dangerous for them to return, such as an ongoing military conflict or natural disaster.

Following Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat in November, several Democratic lawmakers pleaded with Biden to dole out new TPS extensions before he left office, calling the remaining days he has left a “critical window” before the Trump administration comes into power and cracks down on illegal immigration. President-elect Donald Trump has expressed interest in winding down TPS benefits.

Had the designation not been extended, Venezuelans currently enjoying TPS would’ve been obligated to leave the U.S. by April. Their 18-month extension means they are eligible to remain in the country until at least October 2026, according to DHS.

Venezuelans, experiencing incredible political and economic instability since Maduro came to power, have left their home country en masse in the past several years, with the destination of choice for many being the U.S. However, among the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals making their way to the U.S. have been confirmed members of Tren de Aragua.

An internal investigation concluded that Tren de Aragua gangbangers took control of apartment buildings in Aurora, Colorado, in 2024 and have utilized the area to bolster their criminal enterprise. In December, a couple in Aurora had been allegedly taken hostage by suspected members of the gang, dragged to one of their apartment buildings and tortured.

An internal DHS document stated that hundreds of migrants in the U.S. are potentially connected to the gang.

“As a part of our work to counter [Tren de Aragua] TdA, DHS has an ongoing operation to crack down on gang members through re-screening certain individuals previously encountered, in addition to the rigorous screening and vetting at the border,” a DHS spokesperson stated to the Daily Caller News Foundation when the report was leaked. “All individuals confirmed or suspected to be gang members are referred for criminal prosecution or detained and placed into Expedited Removal.”