2019 Day 1075: Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was warned that he should "expect Congress to become unhinged" if the White House withheld security aid to Ukraine; Rudy Giuliani held a backchannel call in 2018 as part of a shadow diplomatic effort aimed at removing President Nicolas Maduro from power; Trump's tariffs backfired and led to job losses and higher prices; and Trump and Barack Obama tied for America's most admired man in 2019. Dec 30, 2019
2024 Day 1441: A federal appeals court upheld the $5 million verdict against Trump in the sexual abuse and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll; Trump endorsed Mike Johnson for another term; Trump sided with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on H-1B visas over his MAGA acolytes, who want to stop immigration and preserve jobs for American workers; Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that "extraordinary measures" will be necessary as early as Jan. 14 to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its debt; the Treasury Department was hacked by a Chinese state-sponsored actor using third-party software to access to government workstations and unclassified documents; Trump urged the Supreme Court to block a law that requires TikTok to be sold or shut down by Jan. 19; Biden announced nearly $2.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine; Biden privately regrets dropping out of the presidential race and reportedly believes he could’ve defeated Trump if it wasn’t for his June debate performance and low poll numbers that lead to his own party pressuring him to drop out; Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the U.S., died on Sunday at age 100; 46% of Republicans support using the military to put undocumented immigrants into internment camps until they can be deported; and about 7 in 10 Democrats said they're stepping back from political news since the election. Dec 30, 2024
2025 Day 1806: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to continue funding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can share limited Medicaid data with ICE; the U.S. imposed sanctions on 10 people and companies in Iran and Venezuela, claiming they were involved in drone and missile-related weapons trade between the two governments; Trump threatened to "probably bring a lawsuit against" Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for “gross incompetence"; Trump told his supporters that Democrats would “steal” their “tariff rebate checks” unless they send him money within an hour; nearly one in four U.S. workers were “functionally unemployed” in November; and at least three artists canceled performances at the Kennedy Center after Trump’s name was added to the building. Dec 30, 2025