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Briana: Tonight on NJ Spotlight News, President Trump returns to the White House within duration date, and promises to change the course of the nation.

Mr. Trump: I returned to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success.

A tide of changes sweeping the country.

Briana: Ready to fight, New Jersey's Attorney General braces for fresh legal battles against the new administration in Washington.

>> President is entitled to put forth a policy agenda that he sees fit for the country, but he is not entitled to violate the law or the Constitution of this nation.

Briana: Also, TikTok in limbo.

The popular social media and lives on in the U.S. for now, as Trump delays and forcing a ban.

Lots of uncertainty remains.

>> If we start going down that road, then we start looking more like a country like China.

Briana: And carrying on the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on this national holiday of service.

>> Is really important that we create spaces that are not only safe spaces but also break spaces.

Spaces where people are able to come and show up as their full sale -- full salts briefly and proudly.

Briana: NJ Spotlight News begins right now.

♪ Announcer: from NJPBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News," with Briana Vannozzi.

Briana: Good evening and thanks for joining us on this Monday night.

I am Briana Vannozzi.

We begin with a few of today's top headlines.

First, Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th president of the United States.

Taking the oath of office at his second in a variation, coinciding with Martin Luther King Jr. Day in a rare occurrence.

It was forced indoors due to the frigid temperatures and marked a historic political comeback.

In his speech, President Trump about the Golden age of America begins now, claiming he wants to be a unifying figure amid conflicts around the world.

And called this Liberation Day, as he critiqued the Biden administration and ran through a litany of his priorities, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border, vowing to send troops to the border to prevent illegal crossings, reinstating their remain in Mexico policy, and promising a flurry of other executive orders before the day is over.

On policies, ranging from energy production to crime and gender issues.

Pres.

Trump: America will soon the greater, stronger, and far more exceptional than ever before.

[APPLAUSE] I returned to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success.

A tide of changes sweeping the country.

Briana: Also tonight, in another historic moment, the first Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners were released from Gaza on Sunday as part of the initial phase of a cease-fire deal with Hamas, hulking 15 months of a Bloody and devastating war.

Three Israeli women were among the hostages released.

28-year-old British Israeli national, Emily Demaree, 24-year-old Romy Conan and 31-year-old Doran Stein Brecker.

They were reunited with their families after being kidnapped on October 7, 2023, and held captive in Gaza for 471 days.

I why 90 Palestinian women and children prisoners were freed from Israeli detention, arriving by bus to cheering crowds in the West Bank.

Over the next six weeks, 30 more hostages are expected to be released along with hundreds more prisoners.

The Israeli military has withdrawn from several locations in Gaza since the truce began, and displaced Palestinians have started returning to what is left of their homes, as aid workers warned significant hurdles are ahead amid ongoing peace negotiations between Hamas and Israel.

Governor Murphy is wasting no time appealing to the new president, asking him to intervene on the controversial congestion pricing plan.

NJ Spotlight News confirms that the governor sent a letter to President Trump today outlining how the two could find common ground on the issue, calling it a disaster for working and middle-class families.

In the letter, Governor Murphy reminded President Trump of his own past comments when he called congestion pricing a "massive business killer."

He is asking the president to forgo the plan and undergo "a close look at deserved but didn't receive."

According to court documents, attorneys representing New Jersey want to drop the appeal in the original case that requested a pause to congestion pricing, and instead continue with new arguments against the MTA and the Federal Highway administration, challenging specifically the government's approval of the congestion pricing rate, which was proposed at $15 for most drivers who enter Manhattan south of 60th Street, but later dropped to nine dollars.

A judge denied the last-minute attempt to pause congestion pricing days before it went into effect.

President Trump returns to office tonight after overcoming significant challenges, including impeachments, criminal indictments and assassination attempt's.

And he was surrounded at his inauguration by a very different Washington than it was eight years ago, with their unanimous backing from the Republican Party, which has assumed control of every branch of government in the nation's Capitol.

What does it mean for the president's ability to chart a new course and reshape the country's institutions as he has promised?

I'm joined by our Washington, D.C. correspondent Ben Hulac to talk about all of that and more.

Good to see you on a big day.

I know you have been hopping around the city for us.

Let me ask you first, your big takeaways from the inauguration speech?

Ben: It was sort of classic Trump in many ways.

A lot of bluster and bragging.

And things that he likely can't deliver upon.

The notion that basically when he is president, things will be shiny and great, and the world will be starkly different.

Every president inherits big global risks and threats and crises that they don't foresee.

He is certainly no different in that category.

It was a landscape that he sketched in his remarks today, really similar to what we have heard from a past in his first inauguration, that the country has been decimated by so-called elites who are not in the best interest, not looking out for the best interest of the common man.

And a lot of really refrains from his first inaugural and many campaign speeches he has given over the years.

Briana: That said, he comes back to the White House as a president who won the popular vote.

He has got Republicans in control of both the House and the Senate, and a conservative leaning majority on the Supreme Court.

How does that bode for him getting those initiatives done?

As you said, they are often harder than promised.

But by all measures, he seems to have things on his side to do it.

Ben: Right.

The courts are certainly in favor of him in a way they were not stacked just from a statistical standpoint when he was president the first time.

Let's remember, three of the six conservative leaning Supreme Court justices were people he named for the Senate to confirm and people of the Senate confirmed.

One of them, Brett Kavanaugh, was the man who swore him into be the 47th president of the United States, a few hours ago.

In Congress on the hill, I think it is a different story.

In the Senate, things are fairly cushy for Republicans.

They have a 53-47 majority.

And they can govern with some ease.

They don't leave Democrats on a lot of votes, certainly not on confirmations for the Trump cabinet.

In the house, it's a different story.

They have effectively a two-seat majority.

And getting through big pieces of legislation, sensitive items, things like the debt ceiling, a tax bill, and immigration bill, all of which Republicans want, is going to be threading a needle.

Briana: Let me ask you about the unprecedented nature of today.

Typically, we see this on the mall with thousands and thousands of people.

This was a much more intimate ceremony.

How has that meant for press like yourself in covering this, and the tone that it sets?

Ben: Right.

The last time the swearing-in was held in the rotunda as it was today was Ronald Reagan's Swearingen inauguration January 1985.

That was a fairly intimate affair.

The cameras don't quite capture how small the rotunda is in person.

You can walk across it in, I don't know, 15 seconds or so.

It's not a large room.

As a matter of access, I have signed up when inauguration was going to be outside for credentials.

I picked those up Friday afternoon, just as the news had broken that the inauguration would be inside.

Briana: Then like for us in Washington, D.C.

Thanks so much.

Ben: Of course.

Briana: With the president taking action on his first day in office, Democratic Attorneys General around the country are preparing for new legal challenges and ways to preempt rollbacks of Biden era policies.

That includes New Jersey's Matt Aiken, who has previously told us he is ready to work with the president but also will not be afraid to challenge his policies.

He joins me now to discuss how his office is preparing for the new administration.

Attorney General Plotkin, thank you for coming on the show.

I have been receiving and I am sure your office has been as well phone calls and text messages and emails from quite a few grassroots progressive groups in the state who say that they are concerned about the executive actions that the president laid out today in their speech.

They are asking for you and the governor to provide what they say his strength and clarity around some of these items and I will start with immigration.

And what you heard today from the plot -- from the president and how you plan to work with the administration with the power of your office on some of these priorities outlined.

Attorney Gen. Platkin: First of all, thank you for having me.

Regardless of where you land on the political spectrum, I think the peaceful transfer of power is something we should all respect and be proud of as Americans.

Obviously, I said since November 5, the president is entitled to put forth a policy agenda that he sees fit for the country, but he is not entitled to violate the law or the Constitution of this nation.

And some of the things he has talked about in his speech today or that has been written about, both before and during the course of today, we know would do just that.

End birthright citizenship, for instance, something that dates back to the 14th amendment, enshrined in the Constitution.

It is something we will not simply let stand.

We are prepared to defend the rule of law, defend the rights of our residents and protect from being hurt, should that come to pass.

Briana: You spoke this weekend at a statewide initiative to help folks who are known as streamers, daca recipients, folks brought here as a young children and many who are working adults or in college.

What did you tell them about how your office plans to use its power to defend their rights?

AG Platkin: I have stood with dreamers for many years now and I am proud to do so.

Dreamers are people who only know this country, who have businesses here, who pay taxes here, who abide by our laws, who have American children here, who are part of the fabric of our state and this nation.

And I have been proud to defend them, just as New Jersey has defended dreamers rights to be here for six years now, maintaining the DACA program which President Obama started in 2012.

What I said to them is the same thing I would say to every resident of the state.

I care deeply about public safety.

I care deeply about the safety of our residents.

You are safer from things like gun violence in New Jersey then you have literally ever been.

People who are here, who pay taxes, run businesses, who know only this country, the idea that they are not committing any crime said we will round them up and send them back and tell their American-born children we are sorry, but you will have to go to a country you literally have never been to, that is something that not in New Jersey that we stand for.

Briana: I'm thinking about reproductive rights.

The governor in his State of the State speech said his administration has begun stockpiling the abortion pill.

Is there something that you see fit, something like helping to ensure an amendment to the state constitution, to enshrine more reproductive rights?

Or do you feel like we are in a good position where we are?

AG Platkin: First of all, I applaud the governor for stockpiling that.

Unfortunately, that is a reality we have to consider, given that during the course of this campaign, President Trump said as well as several of his associates, said that they would invoke the Comstock act, the 150-year-old law to shut down transportation of medication assisted abortion.

Briana: Attorney General Matt Platkin, thank you for your time today.

AG Platkin: Thank you.

Appreciate you having me on.

Briana: TikTok is back online after voluntarily going dark for millions of American users, following President Trump's promise to pause the ban on the social media platform.

Though you users can't download the video sharing app from app stores.

The focus turns to whether its parent company, ByteDance, will sell its U.S. operations to avoid any future shutdowns.

According to the Wall Street Journal, China's Foreign Ministry today signaled it will allow the company to sell part of its operations in order to stay open, as Congress doubles down on promises to enforce the law.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis explains what is next for TikTok and those who use it very >> TikTok, back like I never left.

12 hours or so.

Came right back.

>> We have all been completely panicking.

>> You should have seen your faces.

Joanna: Users who thought their platform was gone forever took two other platforms to share their frustration and relief after TikTok went dark for 12 hours it's today, and then came back.

>> If you are in the business of a content creator, you are still in business the app is still working as it had before.

There must be a lot of apprehension right now, because if he and certainty of the future.

There is talk about migrating to different platforms, but there is a lot of labor that goes into building an audience and following.

Joanna: There is a lot of uncertainty around the legality of what has taken place.

Congress passed a banned, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it and President Trump has indicated he will not enforce it.

>> President Trump also came forward and said no American company would be facing civil fines for continuing to make TikTok content available.

And that is when TikTok came back online.

Joanna: Those American companies are third-party distributors who post the content to TikTok, and who would face fines and penalties for continuing to work with the Chinese parent company ByteDance.

In the hours leading up to the van, many users started switching to other ByteDance platforms like lemon8.

>> There were many people who intentionally were like, you think you are banning this Chinese owned app, what if I go to this Chinese owned app?

Joanna: It bakes the question, can we ban our way into safety from advertisers like China?

This professor says -- >> In theory, it is possible to start banning access to anything that is a Chinese owned app or for an adversary controlled app.

But if we start going down that road, then we start looking more like a country like China.

Joanna: President Trump's plan for the site might not be to eliminate China altogether.

Here is how he outlined it at his rally last night.

Pres.

Trump: let the United States of America owned 50% of TikTok, on behalf of the United States.

So that they will have a partner, the United States, and they will have a lot of bidders.

And the United States will do what we call a joint venture.

And there is no risk.

We are not putting up any money.

All we are doing them is giving them the approval, without which they don't have anything.

It sounds like that works.

What do you think?

Joanna: TikTok liked it they posted this to their welcome back page yesterday which Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Instagram to call out.

>> As a result of President Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S. Joanna: She and others have expressed concern over the influence social media companies could have on the public if they are influenced by the politics of the Trump Administration.

Not a new concern on either side of the aisle.

>> Anyways, it feels like a very democratic space where everybody can participate equally in political discourse.

But we have to remember that these platforms -- the platforms themselves have a lot of power in determining what content people get to see, how that content is weighted or hidden from people.

Joanna: Don't count out the politics of China and ByteDance in this game either, says Professor Joel Penny.

>> Does seem like they are in some ways trying to manipulate the new administration in saying, well, hey all you TikTok users, Trump is going to save you so don't worry.

Putting the pressure on him saying, if he doesn't end up saving it now he is the one you should blame for this.

Joanna: According to the law, President Trump has 90 days to prove ByteDance's divestiture from TikTok.

How this will go in the coming months is anyone's guess.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

Briana: Among the priorities laid out in Governor Murphy's estate of the State address last week, a reform to New Jersey's farmland assessed in law, which gives landowners a property tax break if the state considers it farmland.

Opponents have long argued the law's requirements are thin, and point out that wealthy citizens from Bruce Springsteen to Donald Trump are taking advantage of the rule, costing the state millions.

As Ted Kohlberg reports, fixing it may not be that simple.

>> For the past four years, Jack Curtis has sifted through spreadsheets and Google maps to see if people claiming to be farmers are actually farmers.

>> This is what I get annoyed about.

That these are the size of the houses that these people think they should be getting farmland assistant rates.

Ted: He says many people in New Jersey are falsely claiming their properties are farms, and getting a generous tax breaks because of it.

>> Farmers are the ones that give us the food.

What I'm against his people who are pretending to be farmers, simply to get a 98% tax break.

Ted: A an and 64 state law allows people to claim their properties are farms if they are at least five acres and have land devoted to agriculture, earning $500 a year.

>> That is the bar and the woman talks about building for her children.

Ted: At minimum was increased to $1000 in 2013.

And Curtis said that lead to a suspicious increase from farms that previously were earning $500 a year.

>> I found all the 555 applications.

How much farm products sold?

1001, 1003, 1007.

Ted: He will not call it fraud because he is not a lawyer.

Liz Thompson works at the New Jersey Farm Bureau, and says farms come in all shapes and sizes.

>> That can be many different things.

Agriculture looks different depending on what you are producing.

Obviously, Agriculture changes over time.

Ted: By state law, land must be examined every three years.

Where Thompson and Curtis agrees that is not an easy schedule to keep, especially when so many tax assessors work part-time.

>> There is always an opportunity to look at the program and make sure people are in compliance.

But most of that needs to happen at the local assessor level.

>> My tax assessor here is here half a day a week.

Ted: Curtis has ideas, like tacking on an application fee to pay for better enforcement, or adding an income limit.

>> Every single entitlement program has an income ceiling.

If you make over X dollars, you don't qualify, like Woody Johnson is not going to get food stamps.

But Woody Johnson can get.

Farmland assessment.

Ted: The owner of the Jets is not alone.

President Donald Trump has goats in Bedminster, so his golf club gets tax breaks.

Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen have sworn under penalty of perjury that they have farms.

Curtis's work got a shout out last week at Governor Phil Murphy's state of the state speech.

>> If our law enforcement officers, veterans, nurses, and other working people are paying their fair share, so too should those at the top of the economic ladder.

Ted: About 36,000 people take advantage of this program.

And Senator Joseph Pennachio does not believe the Garden State has 36,000 people legitimately farming.

>> If you want to own the commission and people have a higher pay grade when it comes to stuff like this.

Let us know who these people are, and if they are following the law.

Ted: He has sponsored a bill that would do this.

>> What I'm afraid of is it will be a committee and it will meet for six months and then it is going to go on hiatus, then it will need.

It's going to be kick the can down the road.

Ted: Curtis knows he might be making powerful enemies.

>> I don't really care.

I'm old.

I'm approaching the end of my life.

If they don't like what -- if they don't like honesty, then the problem is on them.

Not on me.

Ted: Curtis estimates with so many people avoiding taxes, the Township is missing out on more than $1 million a year, and other property owners are picking up the slack with higher tax bills of their own.

In Mendham Township, I am Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.

Briana: Finally tonight, as we mentioned at the top of the show, today is Martin Luther King Jr. day.

A national holiday honoring the 96th birthday of the slain civil rights leader who led nonviolent activism against racial discrimination in.

Federal and state laws.

In Newark Museum of Art held its annual community day, focusing on Dr. King's spirit of service and unity, featuring music performances, activities, and a loop of King's iconic "the other America" speech.

This is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service, encouraging all Americans to volunteer in ways that make their communities better.

About 900 people turned out at Stockton University this morning, including students, staff and faculty, where they completed service projects that range from packing hygiene and wellness kits for local rescue missions, to volunteering at senior living homes.

In the end, carrying things inspiration forward today and every day.

That is going to do it for us tonight.

Before we go, a reminder that you can download the NJ Spotlight News podcast so you can listen to us anytime.

I am Briana Vannozzi.

For the tire team at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us paired have a great night and stay warm.

We will see you back here tomorrow.

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