Matt Keeley, The New Civil Rights Movement

As we countdown the hours until 2025, many Americans are not expecting the new year to bring glad tidings. Only about a third of adults expect that the country will be better next year than this year, and even more expect things to get worse.

Just 35% of adults in a new Associated Press/NORC poll say they expect 2025 to be a better year than 2024. Another 39% expect the new year to be worse, and 23% say there won't be much of a difference.

Things become even more stark when split by party. Only 7% of Democrats say they expect things to improve next year. It's particularly grim when compared to Republicans polled at this time in 2020, after then-President Donald Trump lost the election. Even though Republicans' candidate didn't win, 31% still expected things to get better the following year. That year, Democrats were very optimistic overall about the direction of the country, with 79% feeling things would be better in 2021. But after a year of President Joe Biden's reign, that fell to 28% who were optimistic about 2022.

READ MORE: 68% of Nonvoters in 2020 Election Think US Headed in the Wrong Direction

An overwhelming majority of Republicans, 71%, however, expect 2025 to be a better year for America than 2024. That's a huge jump from Republican sentiments this time last year, when only 9% thought 2024 would be better than 2023. Comparatively, only 29% of Dems thought 2024 would beat out 2023.

When asked about their personal lives, Democrats were only slightly more optimistic. While 69% of Republicans thought things would get better for themselves, 19% of Democrats agreed. Overall, 42% thought things would be personally, though, with 24% expecting things to get worse, and another 33% said things would stay the same.

The poll suggests a few reasons why people might be generally more pessimistic about what 2025 has to offer. Two-thirds of those polled, 67%, felt the economy was doing poorly. When asked about how they expected Trump to manage different aspects of the government, over half were not confident.

Trump's ability to pick good cabinet members was most in doubt, with 55% lacking confidence in him, followed by his ability to manage the military (54% were not confident). The lack of confidence in his managing the White House and government spending were equal, both with 52% expressing worry.

The poll was conducted between December 5-9. The sample size was 1,251 adults, with a margin of error of 3.7%

About 23,000 people around the world are going to have a happy new year courtesy of the Department of Justice. The DOJ is paying out $131.4 million to victims of Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme.

The DOJ announced Monday that the final distribution of funds to Madoff's victims has begun. This is the 10th such payout, and is due to make mostly whole 23,000 of his 40,930 known victims. The victims live across 127 countries.

Overall, the Justice Department has paid out $4.3 billion to all his victims, making up 93.71% of losses, the DOJ said. The majority of these were small investors, according to the DOJ, those who lost less than $500,000.

READ MORE: ‘Borders on Pathological’: Judge Decimates Trump in Fraud Ruling

“These victims implicitly trusted Madoff with their investments only to ultimately lose significant monies to his selfish plan. With the Justice Department’s steadfast support, the FBI will continue its tireless seizure of assets from criminals who steal from others and seek to recover those assets for victim losses,” Assistant Director in Charge James E. Dennehy of the FBI New York Field Office said in a statement.

“This office has never stopped at pursuing justice for victims of history’s largest Ponzi scheme,” Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim for the Southern District of New York added.

Madoff‚ at one time the chairman of NASDAQ, defrauded his victims of billions, starting as early as 1964. Madoff founded his investment securities company in 1960, but it was in 1999 someone finally noticed something was up.

Madoff had long reported massive gains due to his investments, but analyst Harry Markopolos told the SEC in 2000 that he didn't think his successes were mathematically possible. But Markopolos said the SEC didn't investigate his reports. Things could have stopped much earlier if the SEC had taken more interest in what Markopolos had to say.

Madoff wasn't actually running an investment firm, but a Ponzi scheme. He told investors that due to his expertise, he was earning them massive returns on investment. Instead, he was just depositing their money into his bank account. When an investor requested a payout, he'd just cut them a check.

But of course, his bank account's interest wasn't nearly enough to cover the kind of returns he'd been promising. So, like all Ponzi schemes, he required a constant influx of new victims in order to pay the older ones.

The wheels started to come off in 2008, when the amount of requested payouts started to overtake the amount of money he had coming in. Madoff started that year with at least $5.5 billion in his bank account. That had fallen to $234 million by December—and more requests for payouts were still coming.

It was at that point he ended up confessing the fraud to his sons, who in turn told the FBI and SEC. He was arrested on December 11, 2008.

Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009. He died at the age of 82 in 2021 at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina.

A woman who says she used to work at UnitedHealthcare said that her supervisors would laugh when she would cry at her desk about being forced to deny claims.

Natalie Collins appeared on NewsNation Prime on Saturday after a video she made went viral on TikTok. In the original viral video, she talked about her time working as a customer service representative for UMR, a division of UnitedHealthcare. She said the company taught her "so many different ways to deny" claims.

In the original viral video, Collins talks about working at UMR for about nine months, with two to three months spent in training. The bulk of the video is about her dealing with a woman who had lost her husband to pancreatic cancer. UnitedHealthcare was refusing to pay her claims and had sued her. Collins said that the claims totaled more than $400,000, and that the company expected the client—a newly single mother with five children—to pay it. Collins said when she finally got approval to apply some funds for this case, she did so and immediately resigned.

READ MORE: Luigi Mangione’s Attorney Blasts Eric Adams: ‘Mayor Should Know More Than Anyone of the Presumption of Innocence’

She went into more detail about her time working at UnitedHealthcare in the Saturday night interview with NewsNation host Natasha Zouves. Collins describes being told to "get the client off the phone as fast as we could." She also says the company would use ways to reroute claims back into a processing queue to delay payment as long as possible.

"If [the client wasn't] liking what we were saying from the script, then we would just call a supervisor, and they would stand behind us. And while I was crying, they were laughing," Collins said.

"You would actually cry on the job sometimes?" Zouves asked.

"Oh my gosh, it was—it was so sad. It was so heartbreaking. I was the bad guy every single day. Does that not feel good to anyone? Like that doesn't feel good to me," Collins replied, later saying she didn't feel like she was there to help people.

"It was just a sad building all around," she said.

UnitedHealthcare's business practices have been in the news this month following the December 4 killing of the company's CEO Brian Thompson. The shooter wrote "Deny, Defend, Depose" on the empty shell casings of the bullets that killed Thompson, in an apparent reference to Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Play Claims and What You Can Do About It, a 2010 book by Jay M. Feinman about the healthcare industry. A backpack linked to the shooting was filled with Monopoly money.

The suspect in the shooting, Luigi Mangione, has pled not guilty. He faces 11 charges, including weapons charges, murder and committing a terrorist act. A recent Associated Press/NORC poll showed that 69% of adults believe that health insurance companies' policies to deny claims while making record profits was at least partially responsible for Thompson's death.

UnitedHealthcare says Mangione did not have an account with the company, according to NBC News.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) may not be speaker after Friday's vote—though he did get the nod from President-elect Donald Trump Monday morning. But even then, Trump spent most of his endorsement bragging about winning the election.

Johnson faces an uphill battle to retain the speakership on January 3's scheduled vote as the new session of Congress begins. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was the first Republican to say he would be voting against Johnson. Several other Republicans from the rightmost wing of the party have played coy about who they'll vote for. On Monday morning, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) criticized Johnson in a Fox and Friends appearance. She also neglected to say how she would be voting.

"If we don’t have a speaker with the courage, vision and the plan, and if Speaker Johnson wants to be speaker, then he needs to lay out the plan and commit to that plan, not like what he did last year," she said, according to Mediaite.

READ MORE: House Could Be Heading For Another Speaker Battle As Dems Refuse to Help Mike Johnson

Posting to Truth Social, Trump gave Johnson his endorsement in a rambling message that treated the embattled speaker more like an afterthought. The vast majority of his 241-word statement was spent bragging about how Trump won the 2024 election and criticizing Democrats. Only 29 words—30 if you count "MAGA!!"—was spent on Johnson.

"We are the Party of COMMON SENSE, a primary reason that we WON, in a landslide, the magnificent and historic Presidential Election of 2024. ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, 312 ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES, AND THE POPULAR VOTE BY MILLIONS OF VOTERS (Despite large scale voter fraud taking place in numerous states, including California, where votes are ridiculously still being counted, or under review!), ALL WON WITH EASE, CALM, & PROFESSIONALISM," Trump wrote in part, before condemning Democrats for "having wasted 2.5 Billion Dollars," and accusing them of "illegally [buying] endorsements."

"$11,000,000 to Beyoncé, who never even sang a song, $2,000,000 to Oprah for doing next to nothing, and even $500,000 to Reverend AL, a professional con man and instigator, who agreed to “interview” their “star spangled” candidates, Kamala and Joe," Trump wrote.

Continuing to brag about how his campaign won despite spending "FAR LESS," Trump eventually gets to the matter at hand.

"Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man. He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!" Trump wrote, the entirety of his comments on Johnson.

Though the Republicans maintained their control of the House, their majority is again razor-thin. If Johnson wants to remain speaker, he needs almost all of his party to vote for him. Johnson can only afford to lose two votes; assuming Massie is not swayed by Trump's endorsement, that means if only one other Republican defects, he can't win.

Johnson even reportedly asked Elon Musk if he was interested in becoming speaker, despite Musk not being elected to any position. Without a speaker, the House cannot function—and that includes being unable to certify the presidential election if no speaker is chosen by January 6.

A three-judge panel has upheld the ruling that awarded E. Jean Carroll $5 million from President-elect Donald Trump. Two days prior, Trump shared a meme saying she should go to jail.

The ruling came from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Manhattan-based court upheld all of the original ruling. Trump's lawyers had "not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings. Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial," the judges wrote.

Carroll said that Trump raped her at a Bergdorf Goodman store dressing room. Trump denied the claim, and accused Carroll of perpetrating a hoax to promote her book. He repeatedly said that not only did he not know her, she wasn't his "type."

READ MORE: E. Jean Carroll Talks About ‘Zero’ Trump in Court and Reveals How She Will Use Jury Award

The original ruling found that though the standard of "rape" was not reached, Trump was liable for sexual assault. The court awarded Carroll $2.02 million for sexual assault, plus an additional $2.98 million for defamation, according to Reuters.

In the appeal, Trump's lawyers objected to allowing testimony from other women who said Trump sexually assaulted them. His lawyers also objected to allowing jurors to hear the infamous Access Hollywood tape that went public in 2016 where Trump bragged about being able to grab women by their genitalia. On the tape, Trump says, "When you're a star, they let you do it."

The appellate court ruled that this evidence was indeed legal for the jury to hear.

"This Court has long taken an 'inclusionary' approach... under which other act evidence is admissible unless it is introduced for the sole purpose of showing a defendant's bad character," the court wrote.

Two days before the ruling, Trump shared a meme on his Truth Social account, which suggested Carroll should go for jail for making false accusations.

This meme could prove problematic for Trump. Trump's been hit by additional lawsuits from Carroll for defamation, when he continued to say she made up her assault story. This January, a court ruled that Trump had to pay her an additional $83.3 million for defamation; the appeal in that case is still pending.

The case was at the center of another scandal. This December, ABC News was criticized for deciding to settle with Trump for $16 million when he sued for defamation. That case hinged on a March 2024 report from George Stephanopoulos that said Trump had been found liable for rape.

Some legal experts criticized ABC News for settling, saying that it could have won the case. However, some reporting suggests that ABC News was worried about what could be uncovered during the discovery phase of the trial.

MAGA world is fighting over the H1-B visa, which allows nonimmigrant aliens to work in the U.S. in specialized occupations. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) entered the fray with a new screed blaming youth culture.

The main fight over H1-B is between big tech and immigration hardliners in the Republican party. People brought over to work on a H-1B visa have specialized skills. These skills can be in any industry—for example, the Department of Labor's own page specifically calls out "fashion models of distinguished merit and ability" as eligible. But it's tech workers at the center of the latest row.

H1-B visas became a flashpoint following President-elect Donald Trump naming Sriram Krishnan as AI policy adviser, according to Newsweek. Though a naturalized American citizen—and thus not covered by the H1-B—his Indian heritage caused some, including Laura Loomer, to suggest that Silicon Valley is icing out American workers from employment.

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene Accuses Biden of Legalizing ‘Human Trafficking of Millions’ in Immigration Row

Big tech however, has said that its hiring policies are necessary to get the greatest talent, leading some others, like Greene, to put the blame at Americans' feet for not getting hired.

"However, I fully believe we must make the hard and necessary changes here in the U.S. to educate, build, and facilitate a solid foundation of knowledgeable, highly skilled, talented, well paid, AMERICAN workers. Not having this is like having a crumbling foundation in our house and currently we are importing foreigners to hold up the foundation walls and plug the leaks," Greene wrote, in part, on Friday morning in a long post to X (formerly Twitter).

Citing her experience owning a construction company, she blames American culture for not "[respecting] hard work and productivity."

"Too many of our young people, are killing their bodies and minds on alcohol and drugs, wasting years and money earning useless college degrees, chasing unrealistic dreams, spending all their time trying to be the next you tuber/content creator/social media influencer instead of pursuing a useful skill set/trade/education in order to become a part of our much needed American workforce," she wrote.

"If you fall in this category, put down the selfie light, and go apply for a job and replace the H1-B visa holders and all the other skilled labor jobs that foreign workers are taking and American companies are desperately trying to hire," she added.

"It’s called building a career, you work your way up."

However, while "building a career" was more common in the past in America, career progression has stalled for many, according to research from recruiter Hays USA. Almost half of workers surveyed—48%—say they don't have any opportunities to progress, according to the trade magazine The HR Director.

“Workers are clearly feeling stuck as they have limited opportunities to progress their careers both within and outside of their organisations. Our research highlights a critical issue for employers: as soon as workers feel more confident to move jobs, we’re likely to see part two of the Great Resignation," Hays UK&I COO Pam Lindsay-Dunn told the magazine.

Layoffs are also common as companies, even when experiencing massive profits, still downsize. Over half of workers, 53%, say they "feel replaceable," according to Forbes. And one need only look to the games industry to see why—despite $184 billion in sales, there were over 10,000 layoffs in 2023, according to Polygon.

It's numbers like that that make clear the issue isn't workers coming in on H1-B visas, nor the kids being too into the Tikkity Toks to get a real job. The issue is executives chasing endless growth at the expense of the workers who make the products they sell. When workers are seen as replaceable cogs, is it surprising that some are asking what the point is?

Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie have joined former Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-Fla.) call to release the "congressional sexual slush fund," a list of congresspeople accused of sexual harassment.

On Thursday, both Greene (R-Ga.) and Massie (R-Ky.), posted to X calling for the release of information from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, which handles complaints of harassment by members of Congress.

"Congress has secretly paid out more than $17 million of your money to quietly settle charges of harassment (sexual and other forms) in Congressional offices. Don’t you think we should release the names of the Representatives? I do," Massie tweeted, along with a video of Massie at the June 14 House Judiciary Committee hearing about former President Donald Trump's hush money case.

READ MORE: GOP Congressman Who Cost Taxpayers $84,000 in Sexual Harassment Suit Refuses to Quit but Won’t Run for Re-Election

Greene retweeted Massie's post, adding, "Yes. I want to release the congressional sexual slush fund list. Tax payers should have never had to pay for that. Along with all the other garbage they should not have to pay for."

Yes. I want to release the congressional sexual slush fund list.

Tax payers should have never had to pay for that.

Along with all the other garbage they should not have to pay for. https://t.co/8CyCO0haHk
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 26, 2024

Concern about the "slush fund" has been circulating since the story first broke in 2017. However, it has picked up steam recently during the House Ethics Committee's investigation of Gaetz. Last week, Gaetz suggested that he would show up on the first day of Congress to file a motion calling for the release of this information before resigning.

“Someone suggested the following plan to me: 1. Show up 1/3/2025 to congress 2. Participate in Speaker election (I was elected to the 119th Congress, after all…) 3. Take the oath 4. File a privileged motion to expose every ‘me too’ settlement paid using public funds (even of former members) 5. Resign and start my @OANN program at 9pm EST on January 6, 2025,” he posted to X, alongside a “thinking” emoji.

What Greene calls a "congressional sexual slush fund" refers to the payments made by the OCWR, formerly known as the Office of Compliance. The OCWR was established by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. The OCWR is sort of like Congress' HR department. In addition to handling harassment complaints, it also makes sure that Legislative Branch properties adhere to OSHA regulations, the Americans with Disabilities Act and other administrative concerns.

Though it was reported in 2021 that over $18.2 million had been paid in settlements since 1997, not all of those funds were used in sexual harassment suits. Some of the money has been used to pay for workplace safety and pay disputes, according to RealClear Policy. In addition, some politicians accused of sexual harassment have paid victims out of their own pockets.

That said, the OCWR has not released much information about these settlements, and it's unclear how much of that money was used specifically on sexual harassment cases. In addition, many harassment claims are settled in mediation, according to CNN, so knowing the amount of money spent on sexual harassment claims could still underreport the number of cases.

Though thanks to Gaetz's pushing, Republicans have recently embraced requiring the OCWR release this information, it's had bipartisan support in the past. In 2017, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) called the OCWR "an enabler of sexual harassment" due to the secrecy, according to Politico.

“Make no mistake that the fault of the current complaint process lies within Congress, which authored and passed this deeply flawed legislation that established the Office of Compliance and its burdensome complaint process,” Speier told Politico at the time. “It is our responsibility to fix this law and do better for our employees.”

Speier, joined by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), proposed the Member and Employee Training and Oversight on (ME TOO) Congress Act in 2017, which would require the OCWR to identify congress members who settled sexual harassment suits and pay back the Treasury for funds paid to their victims, according to Vox.

It was passed in the House that November. The Senate referred it to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, but the bill ultimately died in committee.

Outgoing Representative Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) said that she made the decision not to run for her seat again after meeting with President Joe Biden early in the campaign and seeing his decline.

Kuster, 68, said this March she would not run for re-election to the House seat she's held for nearly 12 years. She told the Boston Globe on Thursday that she'd made the decision after flying with Biden on Air Force One. She says that though she felt he was capable of serving the rest of his term as president, she could see the signs of aging.

“Just in my heart, [I] reached the conclusion that this would be a very challenging campaign for him, and to put himself out there for another four-year term was was going to be a struggle," she told the Globe.

READ MORE: Two-Thirds of Americans Want Age Limits for Politicians, Supreme Court

She also suggested that Biden's advisers may have tried to hide the effect that the president's age had on him, but wasn't sure how much the party had. When the Democratic party first started floating the idea of replacing him on the ticket, she compared it to discussing end-of-life care for loved ones.

“It was painful. I haven’t had these kind of conversations since I talked to my own parents about, you know, their aging and their limitations,” she said.

Kuster hopes other senior citizen politicians follows her lead.

Former Representative Matt Gaetz suggested that he could "go after" his "former colleagues in Congress" the day before the House Ethics Committee report came out.

Gaetz made his comments Sunday afternoon at Turning Point USA's "AmericaFest" event in Arizona, according to The Hill.

“My fellow Floridians have asked me to eye the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee, maybe [be appointed as] special counsel to go after the insider trading for my former colleagues in Congress. It seems I may not have had enough support [to be confirmed as Attorney General] in the United States Senate. Maybe I’ll just run for Marco Rubio’s vacant seat in the United States Senate and join some of those folks,” Gaetz said.

READ MORE: Gaetz Rages at Secret Vote to Release Ethics Report, Insists He Was ‘Fully Exonerated’

This is not the first time Gaetz has suggested he might retaliate against the House. Last week, he suggested on X (formerly Twitter) that since he was elected to the new Congress—despite resigning the position when incoming President Donald Trump initially named him as his pick for Attorney General—he could participate in the vote for House Speaker.

"Someone suggested the following plan to me: 1. Show up 1/3/2025 to congress 2. Participate in Speaker election (I was elected to the 119th Congress, after all…) 3. Take the oath 4. File a privileged motion to expose every 'me too' settlement paid using public funds (even of former members) 5. Resign and start my @OANN program at 9pm EST on January 6, 2025," he wrote, alongside a "thinking" emoji.

https://twitter.com/FmrRepMattGaetz/status/1869443479052362133

There are reports other Republican representatives are working to make Gaetz' threat a reality, according to Politico. Though Politico did not name which representatives were involved, one potential Gaetz ally is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who backed his threat on X, according to Newsweek.

"If Congress is going to release one ethics report, they should release them all. I want to see the Epstein list. I want to see the details of the slush fund for sexual misconduct by members of Congress and Senators. I want to see it all," she wrote.

The House Ethics Committee report released Monday found that while the claims that Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws were unsubstantiated, other accusations against him were supported by evidence. The report says the committee found evidence that Gaetz paid thousands of dollars for sex; violated Florida's statutory rape law; used cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana illegally; violated the rule on accepting gifts from lobbyists; gave friends special privileges and favors; and tried to obstruct the committee's investigation.

Gaetz sued in an attempt to block the release of the report, claiming the committee no longer had jurisdiction. Gaetz denied the allegations.

“Once released, the damage to Plaintiff’s reputation and professional standing would be immediate, severe and irreversible, particularly because: a. The Committee’s findings would carry the imprimatur of official Congressional action; b. Media coverage would be immediate and widespread; c. The allegations would permanently remain in the public record,” Gaetz' attorneys wrote in the suit, according to Deadline.

The committee said that a majority of its members had voted that the release of the report was still in the public interest despite Gaetz' resignation from Congress.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accused President Joe Biden of leading Ukraine into a nuclear war by giving weapons to Ukraine following a brief reference in a New York Times article. The nukes in question, however, are not in the United States.

Greene shared a post by independent journalist Kyle Becker on X (formerly Twitter) Tuesday morning. Becker's original post claimed that Biden's government is "considering the return of Nuclear Weapons to Ukraine." The weapons in question were taken from Ukraine following the fall of the Soviet Union.

"Outgoing administration officials (the admin that massively lost the popular vote and electoral college) should be arrested if they give nuclear weapons to Ukraine. Starting a nuclear war on your way out is treason. The American people do NOT want anything to do with this!!!" Greene tweeted.

https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1861416334069735861

The claim originates from a New York Times article published Thursday, called "Trump’s Vow to End the War Could Leave Ukraine With Few Options." That article read, in part:

“Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications.”

READ MORE: Top Military Advisor Secretly Had Defense Officials Take an Oath Blocking Trump From Launching Nuclear War Without His OK

The Kyiv Post points out that though many nuclear weapons were indeed surrendered by Ukraine following the collapse of the USSR, the nuclear weapons did not go to the United States. They were returned to Russia during the 1990s. In return, Russia gave Ukraine 100 tons of reactor fuels and Ukraine received safety guarantees from Russia, the U.S. and the U.K.

Ukraine's official website says prior to surrendering the nuclear weapons, they had over 4,000 nuclear warheads, plus 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles and 103 strategic bombers. Since the return of these weapons to Russia in 1996, Ukraine does not have any nuclear weapons, according to the country's official website and The Independent.

Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov condemned the suggestion that the U.S. could return these nuclear weapons to Ukraine, according to Turkish newspaper Anadolu Ajansi.

“This is absolutely irresponsible reasoning from people who probably have a poor understanding and imagination of reality,” Peskov said.

The specter of nuclear war has come up again since November 19, when Russian President Vladimir Putin made changes to rules regarding when Russia could launch a nuclear attack, according to Reuters. Two days earlier, Biden allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-made non-nuclear weapons to conduct long-range attacks into Russia, Reuters reported.

Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford urged additional funding to the Canada Border Services Agency to lock down the U.S.' northern border.

Ford addressed the media Tuesday at Queen's Park in Toronto about President Donald Trump's proposed 25% tariff on Canadian goods, according to the CBC. He called the tariff plan "the biggest threat we've ever seen," comparing it to "a family member stabbing you right in the heart."

Since Trump proposed the tariff, the Canadian dollar fell to the lowest level since 2020, according to the Toronto Star.

READ MORE: Rather Than Pay News Orgs, Facebook Bans Article Sharing in Canada

Trump posted about his plan Monday evening on Truth Social.

"As everyone is aware, thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before," Trump wrote in part. "Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem. We hereby demand that they use this power, and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!"

Ford appeared to agree that border security was an issue, saying that guns and drugs were flowing into Canada from the United States.

“We need to give the resources to (the Canada Border Services Agency), which are fine people, and I know, talking to other premiers last night, that we will do everything we can as provincial governments and territorial governments to secure our borders,” Ford said, according to the Toronto Star.

Ford is a member of the center-right Progressive Conservative Party, and had previously praised Donald Trump. In 2018, he endorsed Trump's presidency, and said he had "unwavering" support for the then-leader according to Toronto CityNews. Earlier this month, Ford congratulated Trump and even downplayed concerns that he would levy tariffs against Canadian goods, according to Global News.

“He tried that last time and that didn’t last too long — it lasted about four weeks,” Ford said.

Like Trump, Ford is a controversial figure. He's been accused of hiring family friends as police commissioners and high-paid consultants. In 2018, Ford reverted Ontario's sex ed curriculum to 1998 standards, removing material about sexual orientation and gender identity. He's also been accused of racism.

Ford is the brother of the late Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who was the target of international disdain after a video of him smoking crack cocaine went viral.

A senior advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign suggested that she didn't appear on The Joe Rogan Experience because the popular host was using her as "leverage" to get President Donald Trump as a guest.

Four staffers from Harris' campaign appeared on the podcast Pod Save America on Tuesday. Stephanie Cutter, the campaign's senior advisor for strategy messaging, said that Harris wanted to appear on the show, but the timing didn't work out.

Since Rogan refused to travel, Harris had to appear in person at his Austin, Texas studio. The campaign hoped that Harris could do The Joe Rogan Experience while she was in Houston for a rally with Beyoncé, Mediaite reported. However, that was also the day that Trump was taping his episode.

READ MORE: Joe Rogan Reveals He Contracted COVID in Florida and Is Taking Dangerous Dewormer Popular Among Right Wingers

“We were hoping to fit it in around that time but ultimately weren’t able to do it. As it turns out, that was the day that Trump was taping his Joe Rogan, which they had never confirmed to us, we just kind of figured that out in the lead up to it,” Cutter said.

Another campaign staffer, senior advisor David Plouffe, President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign manager, suggested that the attempts to set up an interview with Harris may have been intended to convince Trump to appear on the show instead.

“Yeah, Dan, so what’s clear is we offered to do it in Austin, people should know that. It didn’t work out. Maybe they leveraged that to get Trump in studio, I don’t know, and then, you know, we were obviously not going to be back in Texas, but offered to do it on the road,” Plouffe said.

Rogan himself said when the Trump interview was released that a Harris interview was still a possibility, and confirmed that he insisted that she come to his studio.

“Also, for the record the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast. They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her and they only wanted to do an hour. I strongly feel the best way to do it is in the studio in Austin. My sincere wish is to just have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being. I really hope we can make it happen,” Rogan said at the time.

Though Rogan ultimately endorsed Trump the day before the election, in the months leading up to it, he praised Harris. In September, Rogan said "she's nailing it," referring to her campaign and debate performance. Rogan was also briefly on the outs with Trump after endorsing his one-time third party opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Joe Rogan Experience has 14.5 million followers on Spotify, according to Bloomberg, and another 18 million on YouTube. Trump's interview with Rogan currently has 50 million views, Mediaite reported. Many pundits have suggested that not appearing on the show cost Harris the election.

Some have placed blame on staffers uncomfortable with her appearing on Rogan's show after Jennifer Palmieri, one of second gentleman Doug Emhoff's senior advisors, told Financial Times that there were worries about a Democratic Party backlash. Rogan is a controversial figure who spread COVID-19 misinformation during the pandemic. He's also used his show to platform conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones.

Nearly a quarter of Republican voters said that they want President Donald Trump to run for a third term in 2028, despite his being ineligible, according to a new poll.

According to the most recent Emerson College poll, that while 30% would vote for Vice President-elect JD Vance in a hypothetical 2028 Republican primary, 23% want Trump to run for a third term. Another 28% were undecided. The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters between November 20-22, and has a margin of error of 3%.

As it stands, the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits a president from holding the office twice. An exception is made if a president is replaced with less than two years left of their term. For example, President Lyndon Johnson replaced John F. Kennedy in 1963 with a year left to his term. Johnson won in 1964, and could have run again in 1968, but chose not to. The only president to serve more than two terms is Franklin Roosevelt, who was elected four times in a row prior to the 22nd Amendment being ratified.

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Despite the constitutional prohibition, Trump has repeatedly made comments about running again. A common refrain during his rallies during his first term was that he'd never leave the White House. And just last week, he again made a reference to a 2028 run in a meeting with House Republicans, according to The Hill.

“I suspect I won’t be running again, unless you do something,” Trump said. “Unless you say, ‘He’s so good, we have to just figure it out.’”

This summer during his campaign, at a Christian summit he told people that if they voted for him to win the 2024 election, "you won't have to do do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians."

However, in an interview on Fox News, Trump said he was referring specifically for voting for him, not voting in general, according to the Guardian.

“That statement is very simple, I said, ‘Vote for me, you’re not gonna have to do it ever again,’” Trump said. “It’s true, because we have to get the vote out. Christians are not known as a big voting group, they don’t vote. And I’m explaining that to them. You never vote. This time, vote. I’ll straighten out the country, you won’t have to vote any more, I won’t need your vote any more, you can go back to not voting.”

In the interview, he said that he would leave after his second term was up, adding "I did last time," referring to his loss in the 2020 election. While that is true, he constantly claimed that the election was "stolen," leading Trump supporters to raid the Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an attempt to stop the electoral votes from being certified, formalizing President Joe Biden's win.

Former President Donald Trump has declined Vice President Kamala Harris' offer of a second debate. He compared himself to a top boxer, declaring himself the winner and wondering why he should bother with a rematch.

Trump and Harris had their first debate Tuesday night on ABC. Shortly afterward—less than an hour, according to ABC News—the Harris campaign asked for a followup debate in October. Fox News offered to be the host, which should have appealed to Trump, considering he wanted Tuesday's debate to be hosted on the conservative-leaning cable news outlet. But apparently, he's changed his mind.

"In the World of Boxing or UFC, when a Fighter gets beaten or knocked out, they get up and scream, 'I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!' Well, it’s no different with a Debate. She was beaten badly last night. Every Poll has us WINNING, in one case, 92-8, so why would I do a Rematch?" Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.

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Though Trump declared himself the winner, that is not a common belief. Many networks declared Harris the winner, including Fox News. Trump is correct that one poll did have him winning 92% to 8%, but that was an online poll from Newsmax. Newsmax is a far-right media outlet. It came to prominence during the 2020 election when Trump turned against Fox News for becoming the first outlet to declare President Joe Biden the winner in Arizona, a battleground state. Newsmax promoted Trump's unfounded claims of voter fraud.

Trump shared a number of other polls on his Truth Social account shortly after the debate, but most were from explicitly pro-Trump outlets like the Daily Caller, or were taken on X, formerly Twitter, which has skewed right following Elon Musk's takeover of the social media platform.

Polls from more mainstream outlets, however, told a different story. Newsweek's reader poll showed Harris ahead nearly 2 to 1. CNN's poll had a similar spread, with Harris declared the winner by 63% of viewers. In the Washington Post's poll of 25 uncommitted swing-state voters, 23 said Harris did better. YouGov's polling was closer, but Harris still pulled ahead 43% to 32%.

Pundits and experts also awarded the win to Harris. NPR said the debate “wasn’t close.” The New York Times said Harris “rattled” Trump.