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(WASHINGTON) — It started with a short clip of him dancing with social media influencer Jake Paul and what Vivek Ramaswamy called a vision to better engage with younger voters.

It’s continued with him documenting his travels on the campaign trail, showing time spent with his two young sons and responding to commenters.

However, the GOP presidential candidate’s presence on the popular app TikTok has put a spotlight on his past business dealings and comments, drawing criticism from his rivals about his lack of political experience, as leaders on both sides of the aisle grapple with how or whether to use TikTok because of its links to the Chinese government.

On the GOP debate stage in Simi Valley, California, Wednesday night, Ramaswamy’s TikTok presence was the target of aggressive attacks from his primary rivals, including Nikki Haley, who cut off Ramaswamy to shout, “We can’t trust you with TikTok,” as he tried to explain the importance of reaching the younger generation in order to win the general election.

“TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have,” Haley cut in, “… Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.”

It was a full-on attack from Haley who had previously said Ramaswamy’s “combination of honesty, intellect, and foresight are exactly what we need to overcome our challenges in the years ahead” in her review of his first book, “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.”

Continuing to talk over Ramaswamy as he attempted to defend himself, Haley took another shot: “When you were in business with the Chinese … we can’t trust you with TikTok”

Later in the debate, Haley again attacked Ramaswamy when he spoke out against providing military support for Ukraine, saying: “A win for Russia is a win for China. But I forgot you like China.”

Haley was referring to Ramaswamy’s company, Roivant Sciences, which has subsidiaries in China and has previously partnered with a private-equity arm of a state-owned investment company there. Sen. Tim Scott also took a swipe at Ramaswamy’s business dealings in China on the debate stage Wednesday night, comparing it to the scrutiny President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden is under for his alleged business dealings in China.

However, it’s not just Haley. Ramaswamy’s TikTok debut comes as most GOP candidates have proposed banning the app or enacting similar safety features, citing national security risks at the hands of the Chinese-owned technology company ByteDance that controls the app.

Scott has pushed legislation that would require app stores to list an app’s country of origin “so that parents can make better choices,” he’s said, while former Vice President Mike Pence has been a vocal proponent of banning TikTok altogether. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson last year banned TikTok on state-owned devices, saying he does not want China accessing state data. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, too, when asked if he would ban the app as president, said “I think so.”

Concern about TikTok’s digital footprint is also leading to bipartisan efforts in Congress and by the White House to limit its reach. President Joe Biden’s administration, which has prohibited the app from being downloaded on federal employees’ work devices, has also threatened a national ban if the Beijing-based corporation doesn’t divest.

Ramaswamy has also shared his own criticisms of the app, maintaining that children 16 and under “should not be using addictive social media.”

Still, Ramaswamy, who has swarmed early states with campaign events, joined TikTok earlier this month, gaining tens of thousands of followers, but also sparking parody accounts and trolls, and forcing him to defend his flip-flop on the widely popular social media app he’s previously called “digital fentanyl.”

The comments are part of his hard line proposing “decoupling” from China, a country he believes the U.S. relies on too heavily.

“Because you know what he’s thinking, he’s looking back at me and he’s saying, ‘Okay. You don’t have it in you because you’re addicted to me. You’re addicted to the fentanyl that I’m pumping across your southern border. You’re addicted to the digital fentanyl that I’m putting in your kid’s hands in the form of modern social media,'” Ramaswamy said to voters in August, weeks before posting his first TikTok after a convincing conversation with influencer and boxer Jake Paul.

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(WASHINGTON) — With Congress failing to agree on spending, the U.S. is barreling toward what could be one of the largest government shutdowns in history.

Lawmakers have until the end of the day Saturday to reach a deal to keep much of the government open.

If they don’t, 3.5 million of federal workers are expected to go without a paycheck, millions of women and children could lose nutrition assistance, national parks would likely close and more.

Latest headlines:

• Millions of military members will go without a paycheck
• White House says they’re pleading with House GOP to ‘do the right thing’
• How did we get here?

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.

Sep 29, 4:47 PM EDT
Millions of military members will go without a paycheck

Unlike shutdowns past, where lawmakers passed appropriations bills to fund the Department of Defense personnel, the White House estimates that 2 million military members will have to without pay if the government shuts down over the weekend.

President Joe Biden, at a farewell ceremony for Gen. Mark Milley, said if the House fails to keep the government open it will have “failed all of our troops,” going as far as calling it a “disgrace.”

Austin Carrigg, a military spouse, spoke to ABC News Live about the impact a partial government shutdown will have on her family. Carrigg said she and her husband, Master Sgt. Joshua Carrigg will be in a life-or-death situation if they don’t receive a paycheck because they might not be able to afford medication for their 11-year-old daughter, who has Down syndrome, a congenital heart defect, metabolic disorder and recently suffered a catastrophic stroke.

“It really feels like a smack in the face that they think so little of us that they’re unwilling to pay our troops while they are going through this negotiation,” Carrigg explained about her frustrations with lawmakers. “We understand that negotiations have to happen and that everybody takes a stand. But that stance shouldn’t be on the backs of our military families and that’s what they’re doing this time.”

Sep 29, 4:36 PM EDT
White House says they’re pleading with House GOP to ‘do the right thing’

OMB Director Shalanda Young told ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang that to avert a shutdown, “we’re doing everything we can to plead, beg, shame, House Republicans: do the right thing.”

Asked to respond to the concerns of mothers who rely on WIC for their babies’ nutrition, Young gave an impassioned response:

“The cavalierness is what gets me. I’ve heard people say in a Republican House conference, ‘Oh, shutdown. It’s not that bad. It’s not like the debt ceiling.’ Well, you go tell people who cannot pay their daycare bill … You go tell men and women in uniform that they don’t get a paycheck when they show up to work every day. You will tell that mother that she cannot … And you’re right, it — it sets an expectation for how people deal with their government throughout their lives.”

Sep 29, 4:16 PM EDT
How did we get here?

Earlier this year, amid the threat of a first-ever default on the nation’s debt, President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated a spending cap for the 2024 budget year beginning Oct. 1. But spending legislation remains mired in Congress with the hard-liners in the House insisting on curbing spending further and other proposals that couldn’t pass the Senate.

A last-ditch effort by McCarthy to pass a short-term funding measure with border security measures to keep the government open until Oct. 31 failed on Friday. More than 20 Republicans voted against it.

The Democrat-led Senate is considering a separate stopgap bill to keep the government open until Nov. 17 as well as additional funding for Ukraine and FEMA, but McCarthy has already said it would be dead on arrival in the House.

Congress remained at a standstill Friday afternoon with the shutdown deadline roughly 32 hours away.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is kicking off a new TV advertisement in the heat of the college football season, with the ad set to air during the University of Colorado Buffaloes and University of Southern California Trojans game Saturday.

First shared with ABC News, the TV spot zeroes in on the Biden White House’s investments into racial and economic equity for Black Americans.

“Getting ahead means getting the same chance to succeed as everyone else. It’s why on his first day, President Biden signed an executive order to address racial inequity, working to narrow the racial wealth gap by creating millions of new, good paying jobs and more funding for black businesses,” a narrator says.

The narrator continues: “But it’s also lowering the cost of living, including health premiums, prescription drugs, and the cost of insulin. Getting ahead with the president, Joe Biden, who is putting in the work for black America.”

The 30-second ad, titled “Get Ahead,” is part of the campaign’s big ticket $25 million investment, which includes the largest and earliest re-election ad-buy any campaign has placed in Hispanic and African American media outlets. A source familiar with planning tells ABC News the Biden campaign intends to pepper those advertisements throughout news, entertainment and sports adjacent programming, including the NFL, NBA and NCAA programming in select markets.

The campaign targeting high-viewership sporting events was first put into practice during the NFL season opener earlier this month. These various ad placements are part of their broader plan to aggressively invest in battleground states like Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

The ad will air in the Atlanta market, one of the largest African American media markets in the country, in efforts to reach Black fans who are tuning into Colorado games at high margins. That spiked viewership comes thanks, in part, to the popularity of University of Colorado’s newest football coach Deion Sanders.

The University of Colorado’s first three games of the season rated 77% higher among Black viewers, making up 23% of the audience for those games, compared to 15% for non-Colorado games, per ESPN research — a figure that doesn’t go unnoticed by Biden’s re-election campaign. The number of African American viewers tuning in from the Atlanta area is helping to drive viewership numbers two-to-three times larger than a typical high profile college football game when Colorado is playing, according to data from the Biden campaign.

“The Coach Prime phenomenon reaches well beyond Boulder, CO and well beyond the traditional college football fanbase. It just so happens that many among the millions of fans tuning in every Saturday to watch Colorado football represent the core coalition of voters who were so integral to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s victory in 2020,” Biden for President communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement to ABC News.

“So as millions more tune in Saturday afternoon, we’re making sure that we’re tapping into moments like these and presenting audiences with President Biden’s historic record of accomplishment for Black families,” he added.

After the Buffaloes’ first win of the season last September, Sanders spoke candidly about the racism he — and his team — are up against.

“We’re doing things that have never been done, and that makes people uncomfortable,” Sanders said. “When you see a confident Black man sitting up here talking his talk, walking his walk, coaching 75% African Americans in the locker room, that’s kind of threatening. ‘Oh, they don’t like that.’ But guess what? We’re going to consistently do what we do. Because I’m here and ‘ain’t going nowhere.”

Only 14 black coaches currently head NCAA Division I football teams.

Black voters were critical in Biden’s victory over former President Donald Trump in 2020, supporting him in overwhelming margins, 87%-12% per ABC News exit polls. Maintaining that coalition will be critical to his re-election efforts, too. A New York Times/Siena Poll conducted in July, still shows that 60% of Black Americans currently approve of Biden’s job performance.

ABC News’ Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The government’s unprecedented three-year pause on federal student loan payments officially ends this Sunday, Oct. 1, when roughly 28 million borrowers will once again be on the hook for their loans.

The restart to payments comes after eight extensions of the pandemic-era pause, beginning during former President Donald Trump’s administration. The end to the pause was finally set in stone after the Biden administration’s attempt at broader debt cancellation was thwarted by the Supreme Court in June.

Throughout the twists and turns, many borrowers have been left confused about the status of their loans and how policy changes could impact them.

Here’s what borrowers need to know.

Find out how much you owe and when you owe it

Not all borrowers’ bills will be due on Oct. 1 — you can find your specific payment date through your loan servicer, a private company that handles federal government loans. The bill due date could be at any point throughout the month.

The Department of Education encourages borrowers to log into their Federal Student Aid portals and check who their servicer is, then log onto their servicer portals.

Many Americans were moved to a new servicer during the pause and payment amounts could be different than they were three years ago.

Payment amounts could also be different because of loan servicer mistakes, which have been well-documented by debt relief advocacy groups. The groups have also reported long hold times for customer service representatives, or multiple different answers to the same question.

In particular, advocacy groups and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have shared concerns that servicers aren’t providing adequate information on the Biden administration’s newest repayment plan, called the SAVE Plan, which the administration calls the most affordable plan for the majority of Americans.

What is the SAVE Plan?

Under the new plan, the lowest-income borrowers would see their payments fall by about $0.83 per each dollar they owe, the Department of Education estimates, and people making below minimum wage wouldn’t be required to make monthly payments at all.

The changes would also stop unpaid monthly interest from accruing and allow debts to be forgiven sooner, between 10 and 20 years after the loans were taken out.

But not everyone will see clear benefits from the new plan, so it’s important to run the numbers before enrolling.

One option to do that: the Office of Federal Student Aid has a loan simulator for comparing different repayment plans.

What if the government shuts down?

In a messy twist of fate, a government shutdown could coincide exactly with the student loan restart. But even if the government doesn’t have the money to stay open, borrowers will still need to pay up.

The government shutdown won’t delay the student loan payment restart, government officials say.

It could make the process bumpier, though, by halting government coordination with loan servicers that provide them guidance on how to answer borrowers’ questions or implement the new policies the Biden administration has rolled out, like the SAVE plan.

The borrower experience would likely get more muddled the longer a shutdown lasts.

“If it is a prolonged shutdown lasting more than a few weeks, it could substantially disrupt the return to repayment effort and long-term servicing support for borrows,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a briefing on Sept. 25.

The government also provides oversight of the student loan servicers, making sure servicers accurately bill borrowers the right amount or pass along the right information about new, lower payment options — two issues that advocates say borrowers are already running into, even without a shutdown getting in the way.

“I think even less oversight will be very harmful for borrowers as payments come due,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director at the Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group for student debt relief.

What happens if I miss a payment?

For the next year, the Department of Education has created a temporary, yearlong on-ramp period through Sept. 30, 2024, during which borrowers won’t be reported for missing payments.

According to the department, that will prevent the “worst consequences” of missed, late or partial payments.

However, interest will still continue to add up during the yearlong on-ramp period, meaning borrowers will see their balances grow whether they make the payments or not.

And the Department cannot ensure that credit scoring companies don’t pull information on whether someone is making their payments, which could impact whether people qualify for credit cards or loans tied to their credit scores.

Could my loans still get cancelled?

There’s still hope, but the details remain sparse as a rulemaking process plays out for the next few months.

President Joe Biden’s initial plan was derailed by the Supreme Court — an attempt to grant between $10,000 and $20,000 of relief to 43 million Americans.

In the wake of that political defeat, Biden announced another attempt at debt relief through the Higher Education Act of 1965.

And on Friday, the Biden administration announced it’s putting together a committee to discuss different ways to design the policy — a sign to borrowers that they haven’t given up on debt relief, even as bills come due again.

The Department of Education specifically asked the committee to consider how to help people who, for example, are drowning in interest and owe more than they initially took out because of the accrual, or people who have been paying their loans for decades.

Some experts say the relief will need to be narrower than the previous attempt to have a better chance at holding up in the courts, but advocates are still pushing for broad cancellation.

ABC News’ Karen Travers contributed to this report.

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