Politics

President Biden, in a race to save his reelection campaign, received a welcome boost from members of the Congressional Black Caucus Monday night when he joined a call with CBC call to talk about the election.

“We appreciate him reaching out and having this conversation continuing to engage with members,” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford said. “We recognize — I do — that he is the presumptive nominee, and we have a lot of work to do defeat Donald Trump.” 

One caucus member described it as a “great” call and said Mr. Biden was “clear, coherent, concise, committed.”

“He found a great deal of support within the zoom meeting,” said the lawmaker, who dismissed talk of removing the president from the ticket as “ridiculous.”

“We’re with him,” the lawmaker said. “I’m with him.”

According to the Biden campaign, the president thanked those who were on the call, spoke about the stakes of the election and role the Congressional Black Caucus will have in his campaign. About 40 members of the caucus were on the call, but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was not among them.

The second vice chair of the CBC, Rep. Troy Carter of Louisiana, told CBS News, “It was refreshing and energizing to hear the president say in his own words that he’s in, and he’s in to win to make sure that we leave no stone unturned.”

“He was energized. He was clear. He was thorough,” Carter said.

He also said that Mr. Biden was “committed to engaging the CBC to have significant input and role in making sure that we are getting the message out — not only telling it — but listening to people in the communities.” 

Mr. Biden, who has been fighting to win back the confidence of many Democrats after a dismal debate performance just a week and a half ago, discussed the debate. Carter recounted, “He didn’t try to skirt it. He didn’t try to dance around it. He owned it … and said, ‘Listen, quite frankly, it was a godawful debate. I get it. And you will see, continue to see the Joe Biden that has steered this country in the right direction and will continue to do so in the next term.'”

The president took questions from CBC members, and Carter said that most of the questions were centered around the need for regular discussions and messaging coordination.

“The president said emphatically, ‘I need you. I want you to be fully engaged,'” Carter said. “He was further emphasizing that, you know, ‘You’ve had my back and I’ve got yours.'” Mr. Biden has always credited Black lawmakers, in particular, Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, with reinvigorating his 2020 presidential campaign by helping deliver South Carolina during the primaries that year after a string of early losses.  

The president discussed his agenda, including the infrastructure bill and reproductive rights. And he raised the issue of Black wealth and Trump’s comment during the debate that migrants were taking “Black jobs,” according to two sources. Carter said that Mr. Biden reiterated that “all jobs are Black jobs.” 

Mr. Biden told the group, “We’re going to make sure we keep Trump from getting elected.” 

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Barragán and Deputy Chair Adriano Espaillat also released a statement of support for Mr. Biden Monday evening.

“The conversations I’ve had with our members have been very positive, standing with the president and recommitting ourselves to go out and engage and do more of our events we’ve been doing,” Chair Barragan told CBS News. “There’s a lot of progress we have yet to do.”

Ellis Kim contributed to this report.

Washington — The White House released a letter from President Biden’s doctor Monday night after press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced repeated questions at a briefing earlier in the day about Mr. Biden’s health and whether visits to the White House by a Parkinson’s disease specialist involved the president. 

White House visitor logs, details of which were first reported by the New York Post and New York Times, show that Dr. Kevin Cannard, an expert on Parkinson’s disease, visited the White House eight times from last summer to this spring. The logs show Cannard met at least once with Mr. Biden’s personal physician. 

Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday afternoon that the president is not being treated for Parkinson’s. 

“Has the president been treated for Parkinson’s? No. Is he being treated for Parkinson’s? No, he’s not. Is he taking medication for Parkinson’s? No,” she said. 

But at the time, the press secretary refused to confirm the doctor’s visits, citing “security reasons.” 

It led to a tense back-and-forth between Jean-Pierre and reporters. It came as the president holds firm against critics who have urged him to end his reelection campaign after a disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump on June 27. 

“You’re not answering a very basic, direct question” about the doctor’s visits, CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe said to Jean-Pierre. 

“Every year, around the president’s physical examination, he sees a neurologist,” she said. “That’s three times.” 

“At the White House or Walter Reed?” O’Keefe asked, referring to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where presidents typically receive their annual physical exam. Mr. Biden had a checkup there in February.

“That is what I’m sharing with you. So every time he has a physical, he has had to see a neurologist. So that is answering that question,” Jean-Pierre said. 

“Did Dr. Kevin Cannard come to the White House specifically because of the president’s condition?” O’Keefe asked again. 

“For security reasons, we cannot share names,” the press secretary said. “We cannot share names of specialists broadly, from a dermatologist to a neurologist.” 

CBS News noted the visits were public information, but Jean-Pierre said she could not confirm the visits because “we have to keep their privacy.” 

“It doesn’t matter how hard you push me. It doesn’t matter how angry you get with me. I’m not going to confirm a name. It doesn’t matter if it’s even in the log,” she said. “It is inappropriate. It is not acceptable. So I’m not going to do it.” 

Monday night, the White House released a memo from the president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, in which he said he had obtained permission from President Biden and Dr. Cannard to share more details.

“Dr. Cannard was the neurological specialist that examined President Biden for each of his annual physicals. His findings have been made public each time I have released the results of the President’s annual physical. President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical,” O’Connor wrote, noting that Cannard has been the neurology consultant to the White House Medical Unit since 2012.

“The results of this year’s exam were detailed in my February 28th letter: ‘An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, or ascending lateral sclerosis,” O’Connor wrote.

O’Connor also noted that Cannard has made regular visits to the White House Medical Unit “in support of the thousands of active-duty members assigned in support of White House operations. Many military personnel experience neurological issues related to their service, and Dr. Cannard regularly visits the WHMU as part of this General Neurology practice.”

The president, adamant that he’s staying in the race, has gone on offense in recent days. 

Since the debate, Mr. Biden has been trying to prove he can do the job for another four years, participating in a number of interviews, campaign events and making outreach to prominent Democrats and donors in an effort to shore up support. 

“I am not going anywhere,” Mr. Biden said in a phone interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. “I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t absolutely believe that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024. We had a Democratic nominating process where the voters spoke clearly.” 

In a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday, Mr. Biden said he is “firmly committed” to continuing his campaign and called for the discourse on whether he has a path forward to end. 

First lady Jill Biden, seen as one of the few who might be able to sway his decision, echoed his message during a campaign stop in Wilmington, North Carolina. 

“Joe has made it clear that he is all in,” she said. “That’s the decision that he’s made, and just as he has always supported my career, I am all in too.” 

Though several House Democrats have called for him to withdraw from the race, many have said they’re still backing him. No Senate Democrats have publicly called for the president to step aside, though some have urged him to do more to show he’s up to the task.

Among those wanting Mr. Biden to withdraw is Washington Rep. Adam Smith, who told CBS News on Monday, “there would be a huge sigh of relief amongst just about every Democrat in the House” if the president ends his campaign. 

“We would be better off with another nominee,” Smith said. “I believe that in my heart, my soul, my brain — I’m 100% convinced of that.” 

A recent CBS News poll found that the race shifted slightly in former President Donald Trump’s direction after the July 27 debate. Trump now has a 3-point edge over Mr. Biden in battleground states and a 2-point lead nationally. 

A prosecutor accused Sen. Bob Menendez in a closing argument at his bribery trial Monday of putting his power up for sale to benefit three New Jersey businessmen who allegedly bribed him with gold and cash.

The presentation by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni, which will continue Tuesday, prompted the New Jersey Democrat to scoff as he left the courthouse, saying: “The government is intoxicated with their own rhetoric.”

Minutes earlier, Monteleoni urged the Manhattan federal court jury to follow a trail of hundreds of emails and text messages between the businessmen, Menendez and his wife to see the alleged link between the businessmen and stacks of cash, gold and a Mercedez-Benz convertible that investigators found in the couple’s home in June 2022. 

He said they’ll also be able to match fingerprint evidence linking the businessmen and Menendez to the bribes, including fingerprints on the tape that bound thousands of dollars in cash hidden in coat pockets, boots and boxes inside the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, home owned by his wife, Nadine Menendez.

Monteleoni said the senator “put his power up for sale.”

The prosecutor said it wasn’t enough that the senator was one of the most powerful people in Washington as the ranking member and later the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he could block or approve hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to nations such as Egypt.

“He also wanted to use it to pile up riches for himself and his wife,” Monteleoni said.

Monteleoni’s closing as the trial enters its ninth week in Manhattan federal court was about half finished when court concluded for the day.

As he left the courthouse, Menendez mocked the prosecutor’s closing, saying the government had “spent two hours on charts, not witnesses that came before the jury.” He added that Monteleoni had spent “two hours telling jurors about what they believe conversations should be that they never heard.”

Monteleoni said there was a clear pattern of corruption and told jurors to closely review communications between the senator, his wife and the businessmen to see evidence of bribes along with proof that they were trying to cover up their schemes.

Monteleoni said defense claims that gold in the house had mostly been inherited by Nadine Menendez was belied by serial numbers on gold bars which showed they had come from the businessmen who paid bribes.

“All this talk about Nadine having family gold is a distraction,” he said.

In return for bribes, prosecutors say, the senator took actions from 2018 to 2022 to protect or enhance the business interests of the businessmen — including pressuring a U.S. Department of Agriculture official to protect a halal certification monopoly Egypt granted to a New Jersey businessman, Wael Hana, and attempting to influence a federal prosecution of another New Jersey businessman, Fred Daibes. 

Menendez, Hana and Daibes have pleaded not guilty and are on trial together. A third New Jersey businessman, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty in the case and testified against the others during the federal trial, the second the senator has faced in the last decade. None of the defendants testified. 

An earlier trial against Menendez in New Jersey ended in 2017 with a deadlocked jury. After the charges were lodged last fall, Menendez was forced to give up his powerful chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Nadine Menendez is also charged in the case, but her trial has been postponed until August while she recovers from breast cancer surgery. She also has pleaded not guilty. 

As part of his defense, Menendez’s lawyers have argued that tens of thousands of dollars in cash found in the senator’s boots and jackets resulted from his habit of storing cash at home after hearing from his family how they escaped Cuba in 1951 with only the cash they had hidden in a grandfather clock. 

His lawyers have also asserted that Nadine Menendez, who began dating the senator in 2018 and married him two years later, kept him in the dark about her financial troubles and assistance she requested from the businessmen.

Menendez has held public office continuously since 1986, serving as a state legislator before serving 14 years as a U.S. congressman. In 2006, then-Gov. Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor.

Several weeks ago, Menendez filed to run for reelection this year as an independent.

Washington — Voters in recent weeks have begun to hear the name “Project 2025” invoked more and more by President Biden and Democrats, as they seek to sound the alarm about what could be in store if former President Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House.

Overseen by the conservative Heritage Foundation, the multi-pronged initiative includes a detailed blueprint for the next Republican president to usher in a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch.

Trump and his campaign have worked to distance themselves from Project 2025, with the former president going so far as to call some of the proposals “abysmal.” But Democrats have continued to tie the transition project to Trump, especially as they find themselves mired in their own controversy over whether Mr. Biden should withdraw from the 2024 presidential contest following his startling debate performance last month.

Here is what to know about Project 2025:

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a proposed presidential transition project that is composed of four pillars: a policy guide for the next presidential administration; a LinkedIn-style database of personnel who could serve in the next administration; training for that pool of candidates dubbed the “Presidential Administration Academy;” and a playbook of actions to be taken within the first 180 days in office.

It is led by two former Trump administration officials: Paul Dans, who was chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management and serves as director of the project, and Spencer Chretien, former special assistant to Trump and now the project’s associate director.

Project 2025 is spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, but includes an advisory board consisting of more than 100 conservative groups.

Much of the focus on — and criticism of — Project 2025 involves its first pillar, the nearly 900-page policy book that lays out an overhaul of the federal government. Called “Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise,” the book builds on a “Mandate for Leadership” first published in January 1981, which sought to serve as a roadmap for Ronald Reagan’s incoming administration.

The recommendations outlined in the sprawling plan reach every corner of the executive branch, from the Executive Office of the President to the Department of Homeland Security to the little-known Export-Import Bank. 

The Heritage Foundation also created a “Mandate for Leadership” in 2015 ahead of Trump’s first term. Two years into his presidency, it touted that Trump had instituted 64% of its policy recommendations, ranging from leaving the Paris Climate Accords, increasing military spending, and increasing off-shore drilling and developing federal lands. In July 2020, the Heritage Foundation gave its updated version of the book to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. 

The authors of many chapters are familiar names from the Trump administration, such as Russ Vought, who led the Office of Management and Budget; former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller; and Roger Severino, who was director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Vought is the policy director for the 2024 Republican National Committee’s platform committee, which released its proposed platform on Monday. 

John McEntee, former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump, is a senior advisor to the Heritage Foundation, and said that the group will “integrate a lot of our work” with the Trump campaign when the official transition efforts are announced in the next few months.

Candidates interested in applying for the Heritage Foundation’s “Presidential Personnel Database” are vetted on a number of political stances, such as whether they agree or disagree with statements like “life has a right to legal protection from conception to natural death,” and “the President should be able to advance his/her agenda through the bureaucracy without hindrance from unelected federal officials.”

The contributions from ex-Trump administration officials have led its critics to tie Project 2025 to his reelection campaign, though the former president has attempted to distance himself from the initiative.

What’s in the Project 2025 policy agenda?

Some of the policies in the Project 2025 agenda have been discussed by Republicans for years or pushed by Trump himself: less federal intervention in education and more support for school choice; work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults on food stamps; and a secure border with increased enforcement of immigration laws, mass deportations and construction of a border wall. 

But others have come under scrutiny in part because of the current political landscape. 

Abortion and social issues

In recommendations for the Department of Health and Human Services, the agenda calls for the Food and Drug Administration to reverse its 24-year-old approval of the widely used abortion pill mifepristone. Other proposed actions targeting medication abortion include reinstating more stringent rules for mifepristone’s use, which would permit it to be taken up to seven weeks into a pregnancy, instead of the current 10 weeks, and requiring it to be dispensed in-person instead of through the mail.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that is on the Project 2025 advisory board, was involved in a legal challenge to mifepristone’s 2000 approval and more recent actions from the FDA that made it easier to obtain. But the Supreme Court rejected the case brought by a group of anti-abortion rights doctors and medical associations on procedural grounds.

The policy book also recommends the Justice Department enforce the Comstock Act against providers and distributors of abortion pills. That 1873 law prohibits drugs, medicines or instruments used in abortions from being sent through the mail.

Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the volume states that the Justice Department “in the next conservative administration should therefore announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of such pills.”

The guide recommends the next secretary of Health and Human Services get rid of the Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force established by the Biden administration before Roe’s reversal and create a “pro-life task force to ensure that all of the department’s divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children.”

In a section titled “The Family Agenda,” the proposal recommends the Health and Human Services chief “proudly state that men and women are biological realities,” and that “married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.”

Further, a program within the Health and Human Services Department should “maintain a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”

During his first four years in office, Trump banned transgender people from serving in the military. Mr. Biden reversed that policy, but the Project 2025 policy book calls for the ban to be reinstated.

Targeting federal agencies, employees and policies

The agenda takes aim at longstanding federal agencies, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. The agency is a component of the Commerce Department and the policy guide calls for it to be downsized. 

NOAA’s six offices, including the National Weather Service and National Marine Fisheries Service, “form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity,” the guide states. 

The Department of Homeland Security, established in 2002, should be dismantled and its agencies either combined with others, or moved under the purview of other departments altogether, the policy book states. For example, immigration-related entities from the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and Health and Human Services should form a standalone, Cabinet-level border and immigration agency staffed by more than 100,000 employees, according to the agenda.

If the policy recommendations are implemented, another federal agency that could come under the knife by the next administration, with action from Congress, is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The agenda seeks to bring a push by conservatives to target diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives in higher education to the executive branch by wiping away a slew of DEI-related positions, policies and programs and calling for the elimination of funding for partners that promote DEI practices.

It states that U.S. Agency for International Development staff and grantees that “engage in ideological agitation on behalf of the DEI agenda” should be terminated. At the Treasury Department, the guide says the next administration should “treat the participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative without objecting on constitutional or moral grounds, as per se grounds for termination of employment.”

The Project 2025 policy book also takes aim at more innocuous functions of government. It calls for the next presidential administration to eliminate or reform the dietary guidelines that have been published by the Department of Agriculture for more than 40 years, which the authors claim have been “infiltrated” by issues like climate change and sustainability.

Immigration

Trump made immigration a cornerstone of his last two presidential runs and has continued to hammer the issue during his 2024 campaign. Project 2025’s agenda not only recommends finishing the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but urges the next administration to “take a creative and aggressive approach” to responding to drug cartels at the border. This approach includes using active-duty military personnel and the National Guard to help with arrest operations along the southern border.

A memo from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that prohibits enforcement actions from taking place at “sensitive” places like schools, playgrounds and churches should be rolled back, the policy guide states. 

When the Homeland Security secretary determines there is an “actual or anticipated mass migration of aliens” that presents “urgent circumstances” warranting a federal response, the agenda says the secretary can make rules and regulations, including through their expulsion, for as long as necessary. These rules, the guide states, aren’t subject to the Administration Procedure Act, which governs the agency rule-making process.

What do Trump and his advisers say about Project 2025?

In a post to his social media platform Friday, Trump wrote, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s pushback to the initiative came after Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said in a podcast interview that the nation is “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

But even before Roberts’ comments during “The War Room” podcast — typically hosted by conservative commentator Steve Bannon, who reported to federal prison to begin serving a four-month sentence last week — Trump’s top campaign advisers have stressed that Project 2025 has no official ties to his reelection bid.

Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, senior advisers to the Trump campaign, said in a November statement that 2024 policy announcements will be made by Trump or his campaign team.

“Any personnel lists, policy agendas, or government plans published anywhere are merely suggestions,” they said.

While the efforts by outside organizations are “appreciated,” Wiles and LaCivita said, “none of these groups or individuals speak for President Trump or his campaign.”

In response to Trump’s post last week, Project 2025 reiterated that it was separate from the Trump campaign.

“As we’ve been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign. We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy & personnel recommendations for the next conservative president. But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement,” a statement on the project’s X account said.

What do Democrats say?

Despite their attempts to keep some distance from Project 2025, Democrats continue to connect Trump with the transition effort. The Biden-Harris campaign frequently posts about the project on X, tying it to a second Trump term.

Mr. Biden himself accused his Republican opponent of lying about his connections to the Project 2025 agenda, saying in a statement that the agenda was written for Trump and “should scare every single American.”

Congressional Democrats have also begun pivoting to Project 2025 when asked in interviews about Mr. Biden’s fitness for a second term following his lackluster showing at the June 27 debate, the first in which he went head-to-head with Trump.

“Trump is all about Project 2025,” Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman told CNN on Monday. “I mean, that’s what we really should be voting on right now. It’s like, do we want the kind of president that is all about Project ’25?”

In a statement reiterating her support for Mr. Biden, Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida called Project 2025 “MAGA Republicans’ draconian 920-page plan to end U.S. democracy, give handouts to the wealthy and strip Americans of their freedoms.”

What are Republicans saying about Project 2025?

Two GOP senators under consideration to serve as Trump’s running mate sought to put space between the White House hopeful and Project 2025, casting it as merely the product of a think tank that puts forth ideas.

“It’s the work of a think tank, of a center-right think tank, and that’s what think tanks do,” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

He said Trump’s message to voters focuses on “restoring common sense, working-class values, and making our decisions on the basis of that.”

Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance raised a similar sentiment in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” saying organizations will have good ideas and bad ideas.

“It’s a 900-page document,” he said Sunday. “I guarantee there are things that Trump likes and dislikes about that 900-page document. But he is the person who will determine the agenda of the next administration.”

A large majority of Canadians have been exposed to Russian false narratives about the war in Ukraine — and people who support the Conservative Party are more susceptible to believing Kremlin disinformation, according to a new report.

A survey from DisinfoWatch, part of the MacDonald-Laurier Institute think tank, found that 71 per cent of Canadians polled have heard at least one Russian false narrative and that a substantial portion “believe them to be true or are unsure of their falsehood.”

It also found “Conservative supporters, who report the highest exposure levels to Kremlin narratives, are also more likely to believe in them compared to their Liberal and NDP counterparts.”

The high percentage of Canadians being exposed to the narratives means “Russian disinformation is, in fact, reaching into Canadian homes,” DisinfoWatch director and co-author of the report Marcus Kolga told Global News.

He said the primary purpose “is to erode Canadian support and trust in the government of Ukraine, to slow down the aid we’re sending to Ukraine and to stop the supply of weapons, whether it’s Canada or any of our NATO allies.”

CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, warned the country’s support of Ukraine made it a target for Russian disinformation in its most recent annual public report.

The survey of 2,127 Canadians shows that 25 per cent of Conservative supporters believe Russia is at war because it is trying to defend itself from Ukrainian Nazis. Twenty per cent of Conservative supporters aren’t sure if that’s true, according to the report.

Those are the highest percentages respective to political parties. Only 18 per cent of Liberal supporters believe it’s true and 12 per cent aren’t sure. Just four per cent of NDP supporters believe Russia is defending itself against Ukrainian Nazis, with nine per cent not being sure.

Ukraine is not run by Nazis. Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy is Jewish and some members of his family were killed in the Holocaust.

The survey also reports that 36 per cent of Conservative supporters believe Ukraine and NATO started the war with Russia, compared to 20 per cent of Liberal supporters and 15 per cent of NDP supporters. (The war began when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. It also invaded Crimea, part of Ukraine, in 2014.)

Among some of the other findings, DisinfoWatch’s survey also shows 37 per cent of Tory supporters believe Ukraine should give up their eastern territory for people “since the people living there are Russian anyways,” compared to 21 per cent compared to Liberals and seven per cent for NDP.

And 49 per cent of Conservative supporters believe “Russia is going to win eventually, so sending aid to Ukraine is only delaying the inevitable.”

Only 29 per cent and 18 per cent of Liberal and NDP supporters believe that, respectively.

“Conservatives support Ukraine and have supported Ukraine since the beginning,” Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong told Global News in a statement.

“In opposition, Conservatives continue to support Ukraine. Conservatives have continuously criticized the Liberal government for failing to uphold our NATO commitments and for failing to transfer sufficient military equipment to Ukraine,” the statement also said.

He also attacked the Trudeau government for, he alleges, not supporting Ukraine enough.

Sam Andrey, a Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) professor and misinformation researcher at The Dias, a TMU think tank, said the political right typically has less trust in the media than those on the centre or left, allowing the false narratives to spread unchallenged.

“This conspiratorial disinformation narrative about Ukraine is much more pronounced on right-leaning sites and outlets,” he said.

Both Andrey and Kolga said the narratives, at least in part, flow from figures on the political right in the United States and into Canada.

Andrey told Global News “disinformation in many different forms is corrosive to our democracy.”

“It complicates our politics and, you know, it can become dangerous. And that’s exactly what Putin wants.”

He and Kolga said people who get their news from YouTube and Facebook/Meta should always look for confirmation from a credible news source.

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