🌊 We Finally Have a Deal?

Plus: TPUSA soars, massive UK protest, & Labubu craze cools

September 16, 2025

Houston, we have a news show.

Roca Nation, for the longest time, you all have requested a daily news show. Well, now we have one, and the consultants we paid $6.5M just came back with a name: The RocaNews Show. Please subscribe and rate on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube as we get it off the ground. You can find the latest episode below. New episodes will come out each day at 5 PM, and they’re a perfect complement to this newsletter.

Also, RIP to the legend Robert Redford. Out of Africa, The Sting, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are all-time great films. Watch one this week if you haven’t already.

đŸ€ TikTok deal finally reached?

📈 TPUSA sees surge in demand

📉 Labubu craze cools

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

We Have a TikTok Deal?

The US and China reached a framework agreement to transfer TikTok to US-controlled ownership

  • Congress passed a law in 2024 requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app by January 19, 2025, or face a ban, citing national security concerns about potential Chinese government access to American user data

  • On Monday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and China’s vice premier ended two days of talks in Madrid that produced what Bessent called a framework to switch TikTok to US-controlled ownership while preserving Chinese cultural aspects of the app

  • ByteDance’s ownership stake would reportedly shrink below 20% to comply with US law, with US investors taking majority control

Dig Deeper

  • Oracle, which already hosts TikTok’s US user data in Texas, is expected to play a role in the new arrangement, according to sources familiar with the discussions

  • A US official said that without an agreement on TikTok, the planned Trump-Xi meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in South Korea next month would have been canceled, making a TikTok deal crucial to US-China relations

KEY STORY

TPUSA Soars Post-Kirk Death

Turning Point USA received thousands of inquiries to start new campus chapters in the days following Charlie Kirk’s assassination

  • Kirk founded TPUSA to spread conservative policies among young Americans. It’s since become the largest conservative youth organization, with approximately 900 official college chapters and around 1,200 high school chapters, plus additional chapters abroad. TPUSA is attributed with partially driving a major shift among young Americans toward Trump in the 2024 election

  • Kirk was fatally shot on Wednesday last week while speaking at Utah Valley University, with Tyler Robinson arrested as the primary suspect

  • Over the weekend following the assassination, Turning Point USA saw an influx of more than 32,000 chapter inquiries – far exceeding the organization's existing chapter network

Dig Deeper 

  • This weekend, the organization announced that it would hold a public memorial service for Kirk – entitled “Building a Legacy, Remembering Charlie Kirk” – on Sunday, September 21, at the Arizona Cardinals’ NFL arena in Glendale, Arizona. President Trump announced he would attend the service

  • Kirk’s widow, Erika, pledged to continue her husband's mission during a livestream, saying, “If you thought that my husband's mission was powerful before, you have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country and this world”

KEY STORY

UK Tensions Rise

Protesters marched through central London in one of Britain's largest demonstrations in decades, rallying against what they viewed as uncontrolled immigration and restrictions on free speech

  • Immigration has become one of the most dominant political issues in Britain as the country faces record asylum claims and ongoing tensions over free speech issues

  • An estimated 110,000 protesters attended the “Unite the Kingdom” march organized by activist Tommy Robinson, who was released from prison in May after a court found him guilty of libel against a Syrian refugee

  • Elon Musk addressed the rally via video link, telling protesters, “You either fight back or you die”

  • Police arrested 25 people after facing “unacceptable violence,” with officers being kicked, punched, and having projectiles thrown at them, injuring 26 officers

Dig Deeper

  • Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded by stating, “Britain is a nation proudly built on tolerance, diversity and respect. Our flag represents our diverse country and we will never surrender it to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division”

  • The UK's business secretary called Musk's comments "slightly incomprehensible" and "totally inappropriate,” while noting that the protesters were exercising their rights to freedom of association and speech

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

Napoleon Bonaparte

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KEY STORY

AfD Expands in Western Germany

Election results show the anti-immigration Alternative fĂŒr Deutschland (AfD) gaining ground in Germany's west

  • Until now, the AfD's support has overwhelmingly come from the former East Germany, but Sunday's municipal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia – Germany's most populous state – saw the AfD place third while tripling its vote share to 15% from 5.1% five years ago

  • AfD party leader Alice Weidel called the result “a huge success,” while an AfD politician said the party has "cemented" its voter base and is “no longer purely a vote of frustration”

  • The victory comes with right-wing forces ascendant across Europe, including Reform UK leading in Britain's polls and France's National Rally topping polls there

Dig Deeper 

  • While the ruling center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) placed first with 33% of the vote, the CDU’s regional leader said, “This result must give us pause for thought; it means we cannot rest easy”

  • He said CDU and other moderate politicians must ask themselves about “the right answers when it comes to poverty and migration
Are all parts of our welfare system really fair? What about problems with housing costs?”

  • Across Europe, polls find that concerns about immigration, cultural values, environmental plans, and other policies are pushing support to the right

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

đŸ‡ș🇾 President Trump called for US companies to shift from quarterly to semi-annual financial reporting, arguing it would save money and allow executives to focus on long-term business management rather than short-term results

💊 The US military killed three individuals in a second attack targeting alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers in international waters, President Trump announced Monday on Truth Social

🧬 FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed Monday that DNA evidence on a towel wrapped around the suspected murder weapon and a screwdriver found at the scene matches Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old suspect in custody for allegedly killing conservative influencer Charlie Kirk

đŸ’Č Alphabet shares rose 4.8% Monday, pushing the Google parent company's market value above $3T and joining an exclusive group that includes only Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple

⚖ Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, sued the Trump Administration on Monday after she was fired from the Manhattan US attorney’s office in July without cause or advance notice

What does Roca Nation think?

đŸ‡ș🇾 Today’s Question: What has upset you the most about the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder?

What upsets me is the idea that criticizing Charlie Kirk’s ideas is equivalent to celebrating or justifying his murder. I believe that no one deserves to die in the way that Charlie did, especially considering that he is a father of two young children. I also believe that Charlie was a right-wing extremist who spread some highly objectionable opinions. I can hold both of these views. Although I disagree with him, I do not think that killing him was a correct or justified action. Just because he was murdered does not mean that I am going to lie about who he was. Charlie was not a soft-hearted moderate encouraging polite conversation between left and right. I doubt he would have even described himself that way! His work was using controversial statements to outrage unprepared young people and then create viral moments from that. That is not healthy debate.

Caleb, 22, from Florida

Although I am sick and tired of the party lines being drawn and assumptions being made about his character (is he a martyr vs. just a guy who got killed), the thing that has upset me the most is just how cruel people can be about someone’s death. I’m sorry, but the minute you start saying “oh, he deserved it” or “they should go for Erica next, then their kids can go into the foster care system to grow up with actual good parents,” you’ve lost a large amount, maybe even all of my respect for you. I don’t care if he was your worst enemy, you don’t talk like that when ANYBODY dies.

And for anyone who’s spouting off about “well, the school shooting victims/MN legislator didn’t get this much attention,” I encourage you to do better than the media. Inform people that these bad things happen to everyone and they are never just party-specific. ♄ Let the world know without bashing the person they are focused on in this news cycle.

Jillian from Wisconsin

I think as a wife to a 31 year old conservative Christian man, with whom I share a life and a child, the hardest thing to see is how people hated him. There are people I disagree with for sure, but to wish death and much worse on a man who simply had conversations about his stances, which were based on a Christian moral ethic, its hard to see. Granted there are a lot of sad things and death is all around, but no one deserve to be publicly assassinated on a college campus while voicing their opinions. My husband is a pastor and is very vocal about his faith and helping Gen Z find Jesus, to know that that alone makes people as angry as this has is disconcerting. Does this mean we live in fear now, no. But it does mean I see the evil in the world rising along with all the good that will prayerfully come from this too.

Someone brought up how no one is talking about two Dems who were killed recently, and I agree its strange we haven't heard much on it. But Charlie Kirk was killed on video, and he has a large public following. It shouldn't surprise people that this has caused a large ripple of after effects.

I do hope everyone who said hateful things about him went and watched his wife's response. She is filled with a righteous anger, and I get that. But they deserve to see that he had a family, that he had a positive impact on society with his work, and that his faith was one that will go down in history. If your ideology can't withstand a man having logical conversations with you about it, you need to check yourself.

Jillian from Wisconsin

đŸ€” Yesterday’s Question: What movie has your favorite soundtrack? Name a few if you have to.

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

đŸ„‡ Duplantis Breaks Record Again, Again: Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis captured his third consecutive World Athletics Championships gold medal in men's pole vault, then capped the victory by setting his 14th world record at 6.30m

🎱 Duke of Disneyland: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle appeared in a promotional trailer for Disneyland’s 70th anniversary special, with the Duke revealing Space Mountain remains one of his favorite rides

đŸ”„ Ruff Day at the Office: Fourteen animal shelter workers were hospitalized after the FBI used the shelter’s incinerator to burn two pounds of seized methamphetamine, filling the Montana building with toxic smoke

👠 Heel Yeah: Spanish runner Christian Roberto LĂłpez RodrĂ­guez set a new world record last week for fastest 100m backwards sprint in high heels, clocking 16.55 seconds while wearing blue stilettos with 7cm heels

đŸȘ† Elf on the Shelf-Life: Pop Mart shares fell 8.96% during trading on Monday amid fears that demand for its popular Labubu elf doll is cooling, marking the biggest intraday drop since April

ROCA WRAP
Peaceful Protest

India

A devoted ascetic has held his arm raised for 50 years to promote world peace.

In 1970, Amar Bharati made a radical transformation from his ordinary existence as a married clerk with three children in New Delhi. He abandoned his job, left his family, and dedicated his life entirely to spiritual pursuit and devotion to Shiva, a Hindu deity. Three years later, Bharati conceived a gesture that would define the rest of his life: Raising his right arm as a symbol of his commitment and as a statement advocating for global peace while opposing worldwide conflicts.

For two years after beginning his protest in 1973, Bharati endured agonizing pain as his raised arm gradually lost all sensation and the muscles wasted away. His unwavering dedication transformed what began as a conscious gesture into a permanent physical condition. Today, his arm has become a skeletal structure with nails that have grown into spiraling claws, yet he continues his silent protest against hatred and violence.

“I do not ask for much,” Bharati explains. “Why are we fighting our sons among ourselves? Why is there so much hatred and enmity between us? I just want all Indians and the whole world to live in peace with each other.” Bharati has adapted to life using only his left hand for eating, dressing, and bathing, believing this sacrifice brings him closer to Shiva while encouraging others to embrace peaceful coexistence.

Attempts to lower Bharati’s arm cause him spiritual anguish, as he views his eternal salute as genuinely promoting world peace. The cartilage in his elbow has dried out, making any movement potentially dangerous to his joint.

For five decades, one man’s raised hand has stood as India’s most enduring peace protest.

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Make sure to check out today’s We The 66 deep dive on what Congress did during the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Thank you for your thoughtful emails to yesterday’s question. It was a day that we genuinely could’ve featured 30 or so. Tons of really high-quality responses. We appreciate YOU, Roca Nation!

–Max and Max