The State Department’s foreign disinformation center, accused by conservatives of censoring U.S. citizens, shut its doors due to lack of funding this week. 

Elon Musk had deemed the Global Engagement Center (GEC), established in 2016, the ‘worst offender in U.S. government censorship & media manipulation,’ and its funding was stripped as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the Pentagon’s yearly policy bill. 

‘The Global Engagement Center will terminate by operation of law [by the end of the day] on December 23, 2024,’ a State Department spokesperson said in a statement. ‘The Department of State has consulted with Congress regarding next steps.’

Lawmakers had originally included funding for the GEC in its continuing resolution (CR), or bill to fund the government beyond a Friday deadline. But conservatives balked at that iteration of the funding bill, and it was rewritten without money for the GEC and other funding riders.

The agency had a budget of around $61 million and 120 people on staff. 

At a time when adversaries like Iran and Russia sow disinformation throughout the world, Republicans saw little value in the agency’s work, arguing that much of its disinformation analysis is already offered by the private sector. 

The GEC, according to reporter Matt Taibbi, ‘funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped pioneer an insidious—and idiotic—new form of blacklisting’ during the pandemic. 

Taibbi wrote last year when exposing the Twitter Files that the GEC ‘flagged accounts as ‘Russian personas and proxies’ based on criteria like, ‘Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ blaming ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute,’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA.’’ 

‘State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. website ZeroHedge, claiming that it ‘led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.” ZeroHedge had made reports speculating that the virus had a lab origin.

The GEC is part of the State Department but also partners with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Special Operations Command and the Department of Homeland Security. The GEC also funds the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).

DFRLab Director Graham Brookie previously denied the claim that they use tax money to track Americans, saying its GEC grants have ‘an exclusively international focus.’

A 2024 report from the Republican-led House Small Business Committee criticized the GEC for awarding grants to organizations whose work includes tracking domestic as well as foreign misinformation and rating the credibility of U.S.-based publishers, according to the Washington Post. 

The lawsuit was brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Daily Wire and the Federalist, who sued the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other government officials earlier this month for ‘engaging in a conspiracy to censor, deplatform and demonetize American media outlets disfavored by the federal government.’

The lawsuit stated that the GEC was used as a tool for the defendants to carry out its censorship. 

​​’Congress authorized the creation of the Global Engagement Center expressly to counter foreign propaganda and misinformation,’ the Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a press release. ‘Instead, the agency weaponized this authority to violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech. 

The complaint describes the State Department’s project as ‘one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation.’’

The lawsuit argued that The Daily Wire, The Federalist and other conservative news organizations were branded ‘unreliable’ or ‘risky’ by the agency, ‘starving them of advertising revenue and reducing the circulation of their reporting and speech—all as a direct result of [the State Department’s] unlawful censorship scheme.’

Meanwhile, America First Legal, headed up by Stephen Miller, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for deputy chief of staff for policy, revealed that the GEC had used taxpayer dollars to create a video game called ‘Cat Park’ to ‘Inoculate Youth Against Disinformation’ abroad. 

The game ‘inoculates players . . . by showing how sensational headlines, memes, and manipulated media can be used to advance conspiracy theories and incite real-world violence,’ according to a memo obtained by America First Legal. 

Mike Benz, the executive director at the Foundation For Freedom Online, said the game was ‘anti-populist’ and pushed certain political beliefs instead of protecting Americans from foreign disinformation, accordig to the Tennessee Star.

In an age of advocacy journalism, April Ryan has long been a standout. Ryan routinely engaged in diatribes in White House press conferences during the Trump Administration and has openly opposed all things Republican or conservative. Now, the MSNBC contributor and Grio White House correspondent has declared that President Joe Biden was a ‘standard-bearer for what the Founding Fathers put in place.’ The reason? His much-criticized and partisan veto of The Judges Act. While even stalwart Biden allies like Delaware Sen. Chris Coons criticized the President for vetoing the badly needed, bipartisan measure to add new judges, Ryan declared it the work of a modern George Washington.

When the MSNBC host noted that The Judges Act ‘had bipartisan support’ and was needed to relieve the overloaded courts, Ryan responded by saying that an obstructionist partisan move is precisely what the Framers would have wanted:

‘It’s simple. This President Joe Biden, didn’t want to give President-elect Donald Trump a chance to add more conservatism into our courts, bottom line. I mean, you have so many people talking about how everything is weighed down right now. The White House on January 20 at noon will be Republican, the House, the Senate, what? Republican and the Supreme Court leans Republican. So this president wanted to ensure checks and balances.

…He is the standard bearer for what the Founding Fathers put in place. He wants to make sure everything goes well. And think about this, even though it wasn’t a federal judgeship, think about what happened with Merrick Garland. Think about the fact that Merrick Garland never got a chance to even have interviews with some senators because they rebuffed, they did not want to have a Democrat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In some ways, this is that as well. This is trying to hold the line, to make sure once again that fairness and equal play and checks and balances are in place.’

Ryan mixes rationales of avoiding adding conservative judges to retaliation for prior votes as a noble cause that harkens back to the founding.

Of course, as discussed in my book ‘The Indispensable Right,’ some like John Adams used the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest their political opponents, but few point to that as the gold standard for the Founders. Ironically, I have previously drawn comparisons between Biden and Adams.

In vetoing the act, Biden once again shredded any claim to being a president who could put the public interest ahead of petty political interests.

Other Founders like Washington did not even support the creation of political parties, let alone endorse raw partisan moves by presidents. Indeed, Biden became the very thing that Washington wanted to avoid in saying that political partisanship:

‘… may now and then answer popular ends…by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government…’

The move by Biden is a disgrace. Our courts are overwhelmed by dockets that leave parties without any resolution for years. In 2004, the number of cases in district court pending for more than three years was 18,280. This year, there are 81,617.

If justice delayed is justice denied, our court system is becoming a tar pit of injustice, with litigants left without verdicts or relief for years.

Every responsible and independent group in the area supported this bill as essential to supporting and maintaining our legal system. The White House did not oppose the bill until Democrats lost the election. (Some Republicans also withheld their support until after the election).

Before the election, both Democrats and Republicans supported the bill in an all-too-rare moment of bipartisanship. Biden then vetoed it because he did not want a Republican to appoint new judges (even though the new judgeships would be added over a ten-year period).

In vetoing the act, Biden once again shredded any claim to being a president who could put the public interest ahead of petty political interests. It ends his presidency on a cynical, obstructionist note.

Nevertheless, Ryan and others on the far left are applauding the act as just what they want to see in a president.

It is one thing to discard any sense of integrity or responsibility, but do us a favor: leave the Founders out of it.

The problem has been percolating for a while. 

It’s been subterranean. Lurking underneath the surface. Not necessarily perceptible.

Except to those who follow Congress closely.

But the issue has gurgled to the top since the House stumbled badly trying to avert a government shutdown last week.

To wit: 

Congress spasmed between a staggering, 1,500-page spending bill. Then defeated a narrow, 116-page bill – which President-elect Trump endorsed. Things got worse when the House only commandeered a scant 174 yeas for the Trump-supported bill and 38 Republicans voted nay. Circumstances grew even more dire when the House actually voted to avert a holiday government shutdown – but passed the bill with more Democrats (196) than Republicans (170). Thirty-four GOPers voted nay.

It was long likely that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., might face a problem winning the speaker’s gavel immediately when the new Congress convenes at noon ET on Jan. 3. Congressional experts knew that Johnson could be in trouble once the contours of the reed-thin House majority came into focus weeks after the November election. This could blossom into a full-blown crisis for Johnson – and House Republicans –when the speaker’s vote commences a little after 1 p.m. ET next Friday. 

Johnson emerges bruised from last week’s government funding donnybrook. Anywhere from four to 10 Republicans could oppose Johnson in the speaker’s race. 

Here’s the math:

The House clocks in at 434 members with one vacancy. That’s thanks to former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. He resigned his position for this Congress a few weeks ago. Even though Gaetz won re-election in November, his resignation letter – read on the floor of the House – signaled he did not plan to serve in the new Congress, which begins in January.

This is the breakdown when the Congress starts: 219 Republicans to 214 Democrats.

Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., remains in the House for now. So does Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. Trump tapped her to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. That’s pending Senate confirmation – perhaps in late January or early February. Once Waltz and Stefanik resign, the GOP majority dwindles to 217-214.

But the speaker’s election on Jan. 3 poses a special challenge. Here’s the bar for Johnson – or anyone else: The speaker of the House must win an outright majority of all members casting ballots for someone by name. In other words, the person with the most votes does not win. That’s what happened repeatedly to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., when he routinely outpolled House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., for speaker to begin this Congress in January 2023. But it took days for McCarthy to cross the proper threshold.

More on that in a moment. 

So let’s crunch the math for Mike Johnson. If there are 219 Republicans and four voted for someone besides him – and all Democrats cast ballots for Jeffries, the tally is 215-214. But there’s no speaker. No one attained an outright majority of all members casting ballots for someone by name. The magic number is 218 if all 434 members vote. 

By rule, this paralyzes the House. The House absolutely, unequivocally, cannot do anything until it elects a speaker. Period. 

The House can’t swear in members. Technically, they’re still representatives-elect. Only after the House chooses its speaker does he or she in turn swear in the membership. 

The House certainly can’t pass legislation. It can’t form committees. It’s frozen in a parliamentary paralysis until it elects a speaker.

Now, I hope you’re sitting down for the next part.

This also means that the House cannot certify the results of the Electoral College, making Trump the 47th president of the United States on Jan. 6.

The failure to elect a speaker compels the House to vote over and over…

And over… and… over…

Until it finally taps someone. 

McCarthy’s election incinerated 15 ballots over five days two years ago.

The House settled into a congressional cryogenic freeze for three weeks after members ousted McCarthy in October 2023. It burned through two speaker candidates off the floor – House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn. – and one candidate on the floor: Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. 

So you see the problem.

Consider for a moment that prior to last year, the House never went to a second ballot to select a speaker since Speaker Frederick Gillett, R-Mass., in 1923. 

It took 63 ballots before the House finally settled on Speaker Howell Cobb, D-Ga., in 1849.

But that’s nothing. The longest speaker’s election consumed two months before the House elected Speaker Nathaniel Banks, R-Mass., in 1856 – on the 133rd ballot.

So anything which elongates this into a collision with Jan. 6 – the statutory day to certify the election results and now one of the most ignominious days in American history – is dangerous.

To be clear: there is no dispute that Trump won the election. There is no anticipation of a repeat of a riot at the Capitol like four years ago. But a failure to certify the Electoral College on the day it’s supposed to be completed – especially after the 2021 experience – is playing with fire. Such a scenario would again reveal another, never-before-considered vulnerability in the fragile American political system.

On Jan. 6, the House and Senate are supposed to meet in a joint session of Congress to tabulate and certify the electoral votes. Any disputes over a state’s slate of electoral votes compels the House and Senate to then debate and vote separately on those results. The election is not final until the joint session concludes and the vice president – in this case Kamala Harris – in her capacity as president of the Senate, announces a victor.

Congress is not required to certify the Electoral College on the calendar day of Jan. 6. There is actually some leeway to wrap things up. In 2021, the Electoral College wasn’t certified until around 3:52 a.m. on Jan. 7. It only becomes a major problem if this drags on through noon on Jan. 20. That’s when the Constitution prescribes that the president-elect take the oath of office. 

What happens if the Electoral College isn’t sorted out by Jan. 20? Well, President Biden is done. So he’s gone. The same with Harris. Next in the presidential line of succession is the speaker of the House. Well, there’s no speaker. So who becomes president? 

Well, there is at that moment a president pro tempore of the Senate, the most senior member of the majority party. He or she is fourth in line to the presidency. At this moment, the president pro tempore is Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. But Republicans claim control of the chamber in early January. And unlike the House, if it’s stymied over a speaker, the Senate is functioning. That means 91-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, becomes Senate president pro tempore. Grassley has served in the Senate since 1981. 

If the House is still frittering away time, trying to elect a speaker on Jan. 20, Grassley likely becomes ‘acting president.’

I write ‘likely’ because this gets into some serious, extra-constitutional turf. These are unprecedented scenarios. Strange lands never visited in the American political experience. 

And it all hinges on Mike Johnson – or frankly, someone else – wrapping up the speaker’s vote with dispatch on Jan. 3. Any interregnum like the past two speaker elections begins to establish challenging historical precedents. 

But frankly, it’s unclear if the House can avoid such contretemps. 

It’s about the math. And once again, balancing that parliamentary equation is tenuous at best.

Two top Canadian ministers headed to President-elect Trump’s home in Florida on Thursday to talk about border security and trade as the incoming president’s inauguration day nears.

New Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly will be in Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday for the talks this week, Jean-Sébastien Comeau, a spokesperson for LeBlanc, told the Associated Press.

Comeau said that LeBlanc alongside Joly will meet with Tom Homan, Trump’s incoming ‘border czar,’ after Christmas to discuss Canada’s plan to secure the border as part of a bid to avoid sweeping tariffs.

The spokesperson said LeBlanc and Joly ‘look forward to building on the discussions that took place when the Prime Minister met with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month, as well as the positive call the Ministers held with Mr. Tom Homan earlier this month.’

Along with discussing border security, the Canadian leaders hope to center talks on fentanyl trafficking and ‘negative impacts’ of Trump’s tariffs on goods.

‘The Ministers intend to focus on Canada’s efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration and the measures outlined in Canada’s Border Plan, as well as the negative impacts that the imposition of 25% tariffs on Canadian goods would have on both Canada and the United States,’ Comeau added in a statement.

Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on imports from Canada when he takes office in January unless the country reduces the flow of migrants and fentanyl into the U.S.

Trump has made snide remarks about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on social media, referring to the ally as ‘Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada.’

The statement on Christmas Day came after Trump suggested to Trudeau that if tariffs on Canada would kill its economy, then perhaps Canada should become the 51st U.S. state. 

Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Canadian imports, meanwhile, have unnerved Canada, which is highly integrated with the U.S. economy. 

About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as well. 

Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian – or $2.7 billion U.S. – worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Trump team for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz and the Associated Press contributed to this report.