Category: World

The Conservative leader is facing questions after stopping to cheer on an anti-carbon tax convoy camp near the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where he bluntly accused the prime minister of lying about “everything.”

In response, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Pierre Poilievre of welcoming “the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists.”

In videos posted to social media, the Opposition leader is seen thanking and encouraging protesters who have camped out in what some participants have described as a convoy-style “hold the line protest” since the carbon tax increase on April 1 — a nod to the 2022 convoy protest in downtown Ottawa.

In video filmed by the protesters, who have been living at the site for three weeks, Poilievre tells the group to “keep it up” and calls their protest “a good, old-fashioned Canadian tax revolt.”

“Everyone hates the tax because everyone’s been screwed over,” Poilievre is heard saying in the video, which shows protesters with “Axe the tax” and “F–k Trudeau ” signs and flags. A car with ‘Make Canada Great Again’ scrawled on the rear window is seen parked at the site.

“People believed his lies. Everything he said was bullshit, from top to bottom.”

In another video from his visit, Poilievre, who has been beating Trudeau’s Liberals in the polls since last summer, is seen leaving a RV with a drawing of the black and white Diagolon flag on the door.

According to RCMP documents tabled at the Emergencies Act inquiry last year, the national police force believes Diagolon is a militia-like network whose supporters subscribe to an “accelerationist” ideology — the idea that a civil war or the collapse of western governments is inevitable and ought to be sped up.

The group’s founder disputes that characterization and argues it’s a fictitious meme.

In that video, a man asks Poilievre for a photo and suggests they pose in front of the infamous expletive flag about Trudeau. Poilievre can be heard suggesting they pose somewhere else.

Trudeau says Poilievre will do ‘anything to win’

Poilievre’s visit with the protesters has caused a stir among his political opponents.

“Every politician has to make choices about what kind of leader they want to be,” Trudeau said when asked about  Poilievre’s comments during a media availability Wednesday. 

“Are they the kind of leader that is going to exacerbate divisions, fears and polarization in our country, make personal attacks and welcome the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists? Because that’s exactly what Pierre Poilievre continues to do, not just when you see him engaging with members of Diagolon but also when he refuses to condemn and reject the endorsement of Alex Jones.”

Jones, a notorious broadcaster who has been ordered to pay more than a billion dollars in damages to the families of the Sandy Hook victims after claiming the school shooting was a hoax, has called Poilievre the “real deal” and recently reiterated his support.  In 2012, an armed man killed 26 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, most of them children between the ages of six and seven.

WATCH | Trudeau says Poilievre is welcoming ‘support of conspiracy theorists and extremists’ 

Trudeau says Poilievre is welcoming ‘support of conspiracy theorists and extremists’

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of exacerbating ‘divisions, fears and polarization’ in Canada after a social media post showed Poilievre at the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border speaking with anti-carbon tax protesters. 

“This is the kind of man who’s saying Pierre Poilievre has the right ideas to bring the country towards the right,” said Trudeau  during a stop in the Toronto area, where he was touting his recent budget. Recent polling suggests last week’s budget release hasn’t done much to sway voters.

“So the fact that Pierre Poilievre hasn’t stood up to condemn that endorsement, the fact that he continues to encourage the kind of divisive approaches to Canada that I don’t think Canadians want to see, really shows that he will do anything to win.”

Poilievre’s team says they don’t follow Alex Jones 

In a statement issued to CBC News, Poilievre’s spokesperson Sebastian Skamski said “we do not follow” Jones “or listen to what he has to say.”

“Unlike Justin Trudeau, we’re not paying attention to what some American is saying,” said the statement.

Skamski did not respond to CBC’s question about whether Poilievre was aware of the Diagolon symbol.

Poilievre denounced the group as “dirtbags” after their founder threatened to sexually assault his wife during an online stream last year.

Skamski said Poilievre noticed an anti-carbon tax protest while driving between stops in Atlantic Canada.

“As a vocal opponent of Justin Trudeau’s punishing carbon tax which has driven up the cost of groceries, gas, and heating, he made a brief, impromptu stop,” he said.

“If Justin Trudeau is concerned about extremism, he should look at parades on Canadian streets openly celebrating Hamas’ slaughter of Jews on Oct. 7.” 

The comment appears to cite a recent pro-Palestinian rally on Parliament Hill. Ottawa police say they’re investigating allegations of hate speech after widely shared video showed a man on a megaphone praising Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians that killed more than 1,200, according to Israeli figures. More than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in Israel’s military campaign since then, health officials in the territory say.

Both Trudeau and Poilievre have condemned the protesters’ rhetoric.

WATCH | Poilievre ‘purposefully trying to divide Canadians,’ Singh says

Poilievre ‘purposefully trying to divide Canadians,’ Singh says

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh accused Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of being ‘irresponsible with language.’ When asked about Poilievre’s stop at an anti-carbon tax protest in Atlantic Canada, Singh said Poilievre ‘will do anything it takes to divide Canadians.’

In a separate news conference, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh accused Poilievre of deliberately dividing Canadians.

“A leader shouldn’t be someone that is irresponsible with language, that stokes division, that stokes hatred,” he said.

“He is someone that’s been endorsed by the likes of Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson. This is a divisive person who is giving life to and giving breath to folks to continue his irresponsible approach, to his divisive approach.”

Poilievre’s visit ‘risky,’ says pollster

David Coletto, founder and CEO of polling firm Abacus Data, said part of Poilievre’s strategy in visiting the protest encampment might have been to motivate members of his base who are drawn by Maxime Bernier’s populist People’s Party of Canada — which took four per cent of the vote in the last election.

“But I think it’s a real risky play because I think this is a protest that seemingly is masquerading as a policy critique but really is extremism,” he said.

“And that’s always the Achilles heel for Conservatives in Canada.”

Coletto said Poilievre is riding high in the polls thanks to people who are upset with the prime minister and want change. He added that coalition “is quite fragile.”

“This might be a signal that the Conservatives might be getting over-confident that pollsters like me telling them repeatedly that they’ve got a 20 point lead nationally means he can go and do things that might otherwise, if it became widespread, turn some of his new supporters off,” he said.

“I think he’s risking fracturing that new coalition.”

Trudeau’s comments on Wednesday follow new Liberal attack ads linking Poilievre to Jones.

Coletto said so far there’s no evidence they’re making Canadians less confident in the Conservative leader.

“But that doesn’t mean over time, does the accumulation of all of these evidence points lead to someone maybe saying, ‘I’m uncomfortable with him being the prime minister of Canada?” he said.

“So I think it all depends on how often this might happen and, more importantly, how many people are aware of it.”

CNN  — 

Prosecutor Chris Conroy captured the quintessential Donald Trump in a single sentence at the ex-president’s hush money trial on Tuesday.

“He knows what he’s not allowed to do, and he does it anyway.”

Conroy was referring to Trump’s incessant testing of a gag order protecting witnesses, court staff and the jury. But there’s rarely been a better description of the presumptive GOP nominee’s entire approach to business and politics – or the way he’s promised to behave if voters send him back to the White House.

The New York lawyer coined his phrase during a tense hearing on whether Trump violated the terms of the gag order in social media blasts, reposts and comments claiming the jury was full of biased liberals and targeting two potential key witnesses, his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film star Stormy Daniels.

And in remarks in an interview recorded before Tuesday’s hearing but that was broadcast as Judge Juan Merchan considers whether to punish Trump, the ex-president was at it again. “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar and he’s got no credibility whatsoever,” Trump said in an interview with WPVI Philadelphia.

Only six days into the trial, Trump is doing what he always does, pushing the rules and conventions of the law and accepted behavior to service his own narrative of victimization he’s placed at the core of his 2024 campaign.

Prosecutors now want Merchan to fine Trump $1,000 for each of 10 alleged violations of the gag order and to warn that imprisonment could be an option if he continues to flout restrictions. CNN’s John Miller reported Tuesday that the Secret Service, court officers and the New York City Department of Corrections have quietly consulted on what to do if Trump ends up being jailed for contempt of court. That remedy remains a distant one for now, but any eventual step in that direction cannot be ruled out since no judge can allow a defendant to mock his authority in what is in essence a show of contempt for the rule of law.

“Judge Merchan has to have control of his courtroom,” former judge and current Cooley Law School professor Jeffrey Swartz told Jim Sciutto on CNN Max. “He cannot allow someone who is under a gag order to basically say, ‘I don’t care what you think, judge, I am going to do what I want to do.’”

It’s almost inconceivable that any other criminal defendant would get away with lacerating the judge and his court in the way that Trump has done on his Truth Social network, in interviews and in his remarks to cameras outside the court. Trump claims the gag order stifles his right to free speech and to campaign as a presumptive party nominee. But that is blatantly false: the order is narrow — even if it was extended by the judge to cover his family following social media attacks by the former president on Merchan’s daughter.

On Tuesday, Merchan grew visibly frustrated with Trump’s lawyers when they insisted that their client was trying hard to comply with the order, without offering any evidence. At one point, in what quickly turned into a disastrous hearing for Trump’s team, Merchan warned Trump’s attorneys they were “losing all credibility with the court.” Legal sketch artist Elizabeth Williams described the extraordinary moment when the judge clashed with Trump’s counsel Todd Blanche. “Merchan is a pretty cool character, he doesn’t get easily riled up,” she told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “They were going at it.”

Trying, and failing, to hold Trump to account

Merchan, like most judges, may not be used to such affronts. But he’s the latest in a long line of judges, public officials, political aides and business associates — not to mention US laws and the Constitution — to try to constrain the former president. And while a dispute over one partial gag order might seem like a small wrinkle in an individual case, it conveys a wider truth about Trump’s impact on American life.

There’s a common theme in all Trump’s four criminal cases, other legal quagmires and the single presidential term that produced two impeachments: He constantly refuses to comply with laws that apply to every other American.

The implicit underpinning of all Trump’s pending trials – including two over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, one over his hoarding of classified documents and other civil and fraud cases – is the same. It’s that every American is equal in the eyes of the law – a principle that even applies to ex-presidents.

But Trump constantly infringes this bedrock value that is the pillar of the legal system. And he will do so in the most audacious of ways on the biggest stage later this week when the US Supreme Court hears his sweeping claim that ex-presidents are immune from prosecution for acts they committed in office. The argument is an attempt to derail special counsel Jack Smith’s stalled federal election interference case against Trump. The former president posted on Truth Social on Sunday: “Without Presidential Immunity, a President will not be able to properly function, or make decisions.”

But Trump is reaching for protections that would absolve the executive office of the presidency of legal accountability for criminal acts — a privilege that no other commander in chief in nearly two-and-a-half centuries has enjoyed and which appears to contradict the founding principles of a nation that rebelled against a monarch who was above the law. Most legal scholars believe there’s no merit to his claims — a stance validated by a court of appeals ruling against Trump in Washington, DC. But any decision by the Supreme Court to suggest even some limited areas of presidential immunity could end up changing the scope of the office itself.

This sense that Trump feels he’s not covered by the same rules as everyone else shines through all of his legal cases – in which he’s pleaded not guilty – as well as his other escapades.

• He’s the first president in history to lose an election but insist that he won based on false and debunked claims of mass fraud.

• He saw nothing wrong, as president, with phoning officials in Georgia and asking them to “find” votes that did not exist so he could try to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in the critical swing state in 2020. The ex-president insisted the call was “perfect” — the same phrase he used to describe his attempt to coerce Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing an investigation into the Biden family in a conversation that led to his first impeachment.

• The impulse to ignore gag orders and most accepted understandings of the limits of presidential power seems to spring from the same contempt for the rule of law that led Trump to allegedly mishandle troves of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and to claim they belonged to him and not the country. He’s also awaiting trial in this case in which he’s pleaded not guilty.

• A sense that the law only applies to other people may have also informed the ex-president’s overvaluing of his properties to secure preferential treatment from banks and insurance firms — an assumption countermanded by his loss in a near half-a-billion dollar civil fraud trial judgement against him, the Trump Organization and his adult sons earlier this year.

While Trump’s obliviousness to constraints horrifies his opponents, his willingness to tear down legal and political institutions is the key to his appeal to millions of supporters.

In his bid to win back the White House, Trump is appealing to Americans who distrust governing elites in politics, the law, the medical establishment and the media. He’s posing as a champion who is enduring persecution so that they won’t have to. “I am your justice … and for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” Trump said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2023, reviving his bond with his populist base voters.

But Trump’s willingness to trample the law and the principles of a democratic, constitutional system has severed his links with more traditional conservatives. George Conway, a conservative lawyer who before 2020 always voted for Republicans for president, will headline a fundraiser for Biden on Wednesday and will give nearly a million dollars to a joint fundraising committee to try to reelect him because he’s worried about Trump’s pledge to devote his possible second term to retribution. He warned Trump “doesn’t care a whit about the Constitution, about the rule of law. He wants to undermine the country and its rule of law for his own political purposes.”

Conway, who was in court for the Trump trial on Tuesday, became emotional as he explained his decision to donate the maximum amount possible in an interview with CNN’s Burnett.

“Yeah, it’s going to come out of my kids’ inheritance, but the most important thing they can inherit is living in a constitutional democracy,” Conway said.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s efforts had been stuck between opposition in the Houses of Parliament and challenges in the British courts, as lawmakers and activists have sought to scupper the legislation on human rights grounds.

Sunak celebrated his success on Tuesday morning, saying: “We introduced the Rwanda Bill to deter vulnerable migrants from making perilous crossings and break the business model of the criminal gangs who exploit them. The passing of this legislation will allow us to do that and make it very clear that if you come here illegally, you will not be able to stay.”

However, the bill’s passage was condemned by activists and the United Nations. Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement: “Protecting refugees requires all countries – not just those neighbouring crisis zones – to uphold their obligations.

“This arrangement seeks to shift responsibility for refugee protection, undermining international cooperation and setting a worrying global precedent.”

Amnesty International UK called the legislation “a stain on this country’s moral reputation” that “takes a hatchet to international legal protections for some of the most vulnerable people in the world.”

Sunak’s inability to implement the policy has caused considerable embarrassment, as the British government has sent millions of pounds to Rwanda to fund a scheme which to date has failed to deliver any results.

It is designed to deter irregular migration into the United Kingdom, particularly people traveling on illegal – and dangerous – small boats from France, arranged by criminal gangs.

The challenge facing the UK was underscored on Tuesday morning when five people were reported dead after attempting to cross from France into England. A small boat with more than 110 passengers “became overcrowded, resulting in several casualties” off the coast of Wimereux, northern France, according to a statement from French officials. At least five people died; three men, one woman and one child, the statement sent to CNN said.

In theory, the legislation will see some landing in the UK sent to Rwanda where their asylum claim will be considered. Planes carrying people to that country are not expected to leave before mid-July. If their claim is accepted, they will stay in Rwanda. If it is declined, the bill says they cannot be deported by Rwanda to anywhere other than the UK, though it is unclear what would ultimately happen in this scenario.

Two years after the scheme was first conceived, the absence of any deportations so far has been considered a major failure for Sunak, who has previously marked out stopping small boats as a key priority.

The Supreme Court of the UK ruled last year that the policy is unlawful “because there are substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers would face a real risk of ill-treatment by reason of refoulement to their country of origin if they were removed to Rwanda.”

Refoulement is the practice where asylum seekers or refugees are forcibly returned to a place where they would face persecution or danger, against important principles of international human rights law.

The judges also found that Rwanda’s asylum system, its poor human rights record, and its previous failure to comply with non-refoulement agreements meant that the British government could not be sure asylum seekers would have their claims considered safely and properly.

They also noted that, as recently as 2021, the UK government criticized Rwanda for “extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture.”

The government responded by introducing the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill in January of this year, which effectively enshrines in UK law that Rwanda is a safe country, overriding the judges’ concerns.

Home Secretary James Cleverly said in a video posted on X on Monday that “the Safety of Rwanda Bill has passed in Parliament and it will become law within days.”

He added that the act would “prevent people from abusing the law by using false human rights claims to block removals. And it makes clear that the UK Parliament is sovereign, giving the government the power to reject interim blocking measures imposed by European courts,” he added.

Even with the bill passed, it is possible that the government will face legal challenges in the European Court of Human Rights, as the UK is still a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights. The European court has previously barred it from sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. 

The bill has suffered long delays because of attempts to amend it. A process colloquially known as “ping pong,” where the two parts of the UK’s parliament – the House of Commons and the House of Lords – send legislation back and forth, has been going on for months. Every time the House of Lords makes amendments to the bill, the House of Commons, where Sunak has a majority, must vote to remove them.

The bill’s passage is not necessarily a major political win for Sunak. Even if the policy stopped all the small boat crossings Sunak says he wants to prevent, it would still barely touch the sides in terms of the UK’s net migration figures. In 2022, the number of people arriving by small boats was 45,744, according to Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. Net migration the same year, according to government figures, was 745,000.

This is a problem for Sunak and his governing Conservative Party, as they are set to face the public in a general election that must be called before the end of this year. Parties on the right – most notably Reform UK, the new political home of arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage – will push the issue of illegal migration as hard as possible.

There is also a danger that Sunak gets dragged into a wider debate around the UK leaving the ECHR, should deportations be blocked by the European court after the bill passes. This issue has already caused deep divisions between different sections of the Conservative Party.

To date, the Rwanda policy has cost the British government £220 million ($274m), and that figure could rise to £600 million after the first 300 people have been sent to East Africa. That leaves Sunak open to criticism from both the left and the right, who can say not only that the policy violates international human rights law, but that it is expensive and ineffective.

The opposition Labour Party, currently expected to win at the next general election, has already said that it will scrap the policy should it come to power.

TikTok now risks becoming a high-profile casualty of the cold-war sequel developing between China and the United States.

It’s one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, wildly popular with younger people. And, within a year, it could be banned in the U.S.

At issue is a provision tacked into a sprawling piece of legislation now poised to become law, when President Joe Biden signs it Wednesday. 

The bill offer the app’s Chinese-based parent company two choices: Sell the app or see it shut down, sometime between next January and April, in its biggest national market.

This sets up a year of intense battles on multiple fronts in courtrooms, boardrooms and the presidential election trail.

Here’s a summary of the situation.

What just happened

Late Tuesday evening, in a 79-18 vote, the U.S. Senate passed a major national-security bill that arms America’s allies and sanctions adversaries.

The biggest immediate story in the bill is the long-awaited weapons delivery to Ukraine — a months-long resupply intended to halt Russian advances.

About two-thirds of the $95-billion US package is going to Ukraine’s self-defence, with the remainder going primarily to weapons for Taiwan and Israel.

“Finally, finally, finally,” said Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, celebrating the end of a six-month struggle to pass this bill.

“America sends a message to the entire world: We will not turn our back on you. Tonight we tell our allies we stand with you, we tell our adversaries don’t mess with us.”

The Republican-led House had tucked the TikTok element into the bill, and it had overwhelming bipartisan support.

It forbids American companies from distributing, maintaining or updating apps controlled by foreign adversaries, defined as North Korea, China, Russia and Iran in an existing law. 

The bill specifically singles out TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance Inc.

The parent company has 270 days — meaning until Jan. 19, 2025 — to sell its product to a buyer in another country.  Enforcement can be delayed another three months by the president, if there’s a sale in progress.

Arguments for the TikTok crackdown

The hostile relationship between the U.S. and China is the context here: Both countries are accelerating a military buildup, and both have officials musing openly about the potential for conflict over Taiwan.

National-security hawks have persuaded a majority of the U.S. Congress that TikTok is a threat to Americans’ security.

American lawmakers favouring the crackdown call it foolish to grant a Chinese-owned company control over software on the devices of 170 million Americans.

They describe two fears: One, that the app can spy on Americans, hoovering up their data. Two, that it might become an information weapon. 

After a recent classified briefing on the topic, some U.S. lawmakers said they were disturbed by what they’d been told by intelligence officials.

“TikTok is a gun aimed at Americans’ heads,” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said afterward.

“The American people need, and deserve, to hear what we’ve just been told. Because they would be deeply frightened.”

U.S. officials do not believe assurances that TikTok’s data is kept from the Chinese government just because its servers are outside China.

Chinese law, they say, makes clear that the parent company must take orders from the central government and its representatives on ByteDance’s staff.

ByteDance is even accused of helping build China’s system for cracking down on the Uyghur minority, and of targeting protesters in Hong Kong. 

Leaked audio from TikTok meetings shows that user data is repeatedly accessed from that parent company in China. 

Meanwhile, TikTok was the only app that monitored users’ phone keystrokes among seven major apps tested by a privacy researcher and former Google engineer.

The company called those findings misleading. 

When asked about keystroke-monitoring at a congressional hearing last year, TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi replied: “Only for security purposes.” 

He said his company only checked for bots, and said other companies do the same. He said TikTok does not monitor what users type.

Arguments against the crackdown

Up to half the U.S. uses this app. Some Americans earn a living as influencers on it, and there’s no evidence it’s done any of them any harm.

One user with a lot of reach is Sarah Lauren, a Canadian living in New York City. She currently has another job but is thinking of making a full-time living from TikTok revenue.

With 740,000 followers, she’s drawn tens of millions of views for posts with titles like, “Things Guys Do When They Don’t Like You.”

“It is definitely scary,” she told CBC News this week, when asked about the potential U.S. ban. 

“I’m lucky because I have a full-time job as well.… But for my friends that are in content creation and they do it as a full-time job, it’s really crucial for our income. To be banned, what are they gonna do?”

She advises her fellow influencers to start hedging their bets by posting on all platforms, including Instagram where she has about 40,000 followers.

WATCH | Influencers ‘are terrified,’ says Canadian on TikTok:

Canadian influencer describes fears of TikTok ban

TikTok influencer Sarah Lauren, who recently moved to New York, speaks about the potential ban of the social media app and what it means for her career.

If the U.S. government has evidence that these Americans are at risk, it should show its cards, says one free-speech advocate.

“Currently, there is no public evidence that TikTok has shared user data with the Chinese government,” said Kate Ruane, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Free Expression Project.

Furthermore, she said, foreign adversaries have other ways to scoop up Americans’ personal data: They can simply buy it on the open market.

That’s why she’s urged the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive legislation regulating the data economy, instead of just targeting one company.

For example, she pointed to the American Privacy Rights Act. The still-unpassed bill would limit what platforms can collect, and sell to data-brokers, without user consent. It would let users learn more about what data is collected, be able to opt out, force data sellers to be publicly transparent and would give state and federal authorities more power to punish abuses.

Separately, there’s a bill in the Senate — the Kids Online Safety Act — that would force sweeping reforms across the industry, intended to protect young users. 

Next up: Big battles   

International companies will surely make big offers to buy this hot digital commodity. But the Chinese government has hinted it would block a sale.  

The superpowers will accuse each other of hypocrisy. 

China, after all, is now crying foul, but it bans U.S. products like Google, Facebook, X and Instagram. The U.S., meanwhile, will be accused of selective commitment to free speech.

The inevitable lawsuits could lead to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A Montana case offers a preview of the arguments. When the state of Montana passed a TikTok ban last year, the company sued. 

The company argued the ban violated multiple clauses of the U.S. Constitution. The free-speech protections in the First Amendment, for starters.

It also cited the so-called bill of attainder clause in Article 1, which forbids assigning guilt and punishing someone in a law without a trial.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Montana’s ban: “[This] likely violates the First Amendment,” wrote district court Judge Donald Molloy.

Finally, there’s the presidential election.

Donald Trump has done a head-snapping, 180-degree turn. He tried unilaterally banning TikTok when he was president, but was rebuked by the courts; now he’s on good terms with a major campaign donor who is also a major shareholder in TikTok.

Trump has suddenly transformed himself into a TikTok champion. 

And he’s been transparent in how he intends to use this on the campaign trail: To try peeling young voters away from Biden in a close election.

“Young people, and lots of others, must remember this … when they vote,” Trump posted on his own social-media site, blaming Biden for a potential ban. 

When Schumer, the Democratic congressional leader, was asked Tuesday about possible political blowback, he recited the history of the bill.

It was the Republican-led House that passed a TikTok ban last month. That bill was idling in the Senate. Then the Republican House passed it again Saturday, he noted.

This time the measure was stuck into a bigger bill the Senate was desperately keen on passing: Aid for Ukraine, in particular, which had been stalled for months. 

Four days later, it’s on its way to the president’s desk. And the countdown starts to a potential ban as soon as Jan. 19, 2025 — the last full day of Biden’s current term.

When Stuart Heritage agreed to play two separate games with each of his children simultaneously, it left him exhausted, confused, and hiding in the bathroom. 

But that misguided decision — and the chaos that ensued — landed him a credit on his favourite TV show, Bluey.

Surprise, the unexpected coda to the hit cartoon’s powerhouse season finale, is based on Heritage’s family camping trip three years ago, and it’s made him a hero in the eyes of his children and all their friends.

“That is the thing I love most about it — that was a real moment with my real kids,” Heritage told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

‘Awful, bad decision’

It all began in 2021 when Heritage, a pop culture reporter for the Guardian based in Kent, England, decided to take his kids, then aged three and six, on a weekend camping trip all by himself — “which, in retrospect, was incredibly foolish,” he said. 

At a playground near the campsite, one child insisted they play “floor is lava,” while the other proposed a “complicated alien defence game on a climbing frame,” Heritage said.

“They were just arguing over who would go first, and it got to the point that I was just like, ‘Look, if it will help, I will play the game with both of you at the same time,'” he said.

“Awful, bad decision.”

The children proceeded to explain the complicated rules of their imaginary worlds at the same time, talking over each as they did so. 

“I went to defend the climbing frame from some aliens, and the younger kid told me I was standing in lava. So I jumped up on a see-saw, and then I was letting the aliens in. And it just went backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards,” Heritage said. 

“And it just struck me that … basically, this was an episode of Bluey that I was in.”

So he fired off a pitch email to the series creator, Joe Brumm, whom he’d previously interviewed for the Guardian.

Why grown-ups love Bluey

By this point, Heritage was all in on Bluey, the critically acclaimed Australian animated series about a family of dogs that’s become a fan-favourite for both children and parents, alike.

“The thing that connected with me was the dad. I mean, I’m talking about a cartoon dog, which sounds bizarre, but he is sort of the best dad in the world. He’s present, he listens, he’s patient, but at the same time, he struggles,” Heritage said.

“Dads are kind of watching him and almost taking parenting lessons from him.”

Meryl Alper, an associate professor of communication studies at Northeastern University in Boston, says that’s a huge part of Bluey’s cross-generational appeal. 

“You see a lot of TV that’s for kids that’s educational. But not so much that’s really also meant to help parents come away with some bigger answers, and maybe some new questions for themselves, about who they want to be as parents,” Alper told The Current host Matt Galloway.

“It’s really this sort of animated guide for how to play with your kids and how to be really present with them.”

Pitching from the toilet

But no parent can be present 100 per cent of the time. So after a wild day of simultaneously fending off alien invaders whilst avoiding hot lava, Heritage locked himself in the campsite bathroom for a brief moment of respite.

That’s where he ironed out the details with Brumm over email. 

“Joe Brumm replied very quickly, and very reassuringly said, ‘You have everything you need to survive in that toilet,'” he said. “Dad to dad, that felt very kind.”

The episode in question, Surprise, dropped on Sunday on Disney+. In it, dad dog Bandit bites off more than he can chew when he agrees to play two different games with Bluey and his sister Bingo at the same time. 

The final credits read: “Created and written by Joe Brumm, from an idea by Stuart Heritage.”

“My oldest kid went to school and announced to his classmates that the episode had my name at the end of it, and the teacher put it on for them,” Heritage said. “Now I’m a real big deal. You have no idea. Yeah, I’m a real big shot on the playground.”

What’s next for Bluey?

Surprise was, indeed, a surprise to fans. It dropped unexpectedly a week after the show’s emotional and critically acclaimed Season 3 finale, The Sign.

At 28 minutes, The Sign is four times longer than the usual seven-minute Bluey episode. It showed the family dealing with a decision about whether to sell their house and move to a new city.

Surprise aired after the finale because it makes reference to The Sign‘s plot, and the producers didn’t want to spoil anything, Heritage wrote in the Guardian.

The Sign’s length and subject matter had viewers speculating about the end of Bluey. But the show’s producer recently told the BBC the beloved Australian dogs will return to the screen after a temporary hiatus. 

Ludo, the studio behind Bluey, did not respond to a CBC request for comment. 

Heritage suspects that when the show returns, it will be in a different format — perhaps longer episodes, or maybe even a movie.

But he’s quick to note he has no inside info. 

“They don’t tell me anything, by the way,” he said. “They know I’m a journalist and I’ll just blab it to everyone.”