The justices’ order sets the case up to be heard at a speedy pace, with oral arguments scheduled for Feb. 8 and a decision to follow that could spark Trump’s removal from the ballot in states across the country.

Dozens of challenges to Trump’s eligibility under the 14th Amendment have been filed nationwide, though many cases have been rejected by lower courts.

But two states — Colorado and Maine — last month took the extraordinary step of removing Trump from the primary ballot.

Although those rulings remain on hold until Trump’s appeals are resolved, enabling his name to remain on the ballot in the meantime, the justices’ decision to hear the Colorado case equips the high court to provide a national resolution in advance of the general election.

Trump’s political fate now lies in the hands of the conservative-majority court, which includes three Trump appointees and has never squarely resolved the meaning of the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban.

"We welcome a fair hearing at the Supreme Court to argue against the bad-faith, election-interfering, voter-suppressing, Democrat-backed and Biden-led, 14th Amendment abusing decision to remove President Trump’s name from the 2024 ballot in the state of Colorado,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

The clause prohibits someone from holding “any office … under the United States” if they “engaged in insurrection” after taking an oath to support the Constitution.

It was ratified after the Civil War and originally designed to keep Confederates from returning to federal office. After falling largely dormant for decades, anti-Trump plaintiffs have contended the then-president’s actions surrounding the Capitol riot amounted to insurrection and should disqualify him from seeking a second White House term.

In Colorado, four Republican and two independent voters backed by watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit seeking to remove Trump from the primary ballot.

In a 4-3 decision, the Colorado Supreme Court sided with them and last month became the first to issue a decision that, if allowed to stand, would disqualify Trump from appearing on the state’s ballot.

All parties in the case — Trump, the Colorado Republican Party, the Colorado secretary of state and the plaintiffs who won — agreed the U.S. Supreme Court should take up the case given the significance of the issues, citing a need for a national consensus.

“The Colorado Supreme Court has no authority to deny President Trump access to the ballot. By doing so, the Colorado Supreme Court has usurped Congressional authority and misinterpreted and misapplied the text of section 3,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in court filings.

But they split on how fast the high court should consider the case and what legal questions it should resolve.

In Maine, Trump is appealing in state court Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’s (D) decision that would knock the former president off the primary ballot. The case could reach the justices within weeks.

“President Trump is dominating the polls, and the Biden presidency has failed all Americans,” Cheung said in his statement. “We are confident that the fair-minded Supreme Court will unanimously affirm the civil rights of President Trump, and the voting rights of all Americans in a ruling that will squash all of the remaining ballot challenge hoaxes once and for all.”

Updated at 6:03 p.m.

LaPierre’s resignation, first reported by Fox News, comes as the organization defends itself in a New York civil suit alleging he and other executives spent millions of the group’s funds on luxury vacations and other perks.

“With pride in all that we have accomplished, I am announcing my resignation from the NRA,” LaPierre said in a statement. “I’ve been a card-carrying member of this organization for most of my adult life, and I will never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom. My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever.”

The 74-year-old cited health concerns for his resignation, which will take effect Jan. 31. 

LaPierre has helmed the NRA for more than three decades, leading it through triumph as it gained political clout, controversy after innumerable mass shootings and downfall as the group has run into financial trouble.

"I am proud of the NRA’s advocacy in New York and, through it all, determination to defend the Second Amendment. I can assure you the NRA’s mission, programming, and fight for freedom have never been more secure," he said.

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He first joined the group as an employee in 1977, about the time the group began its transformation from a firearms safety advocacy group into a conservative political powerhouse. 

Under LaPierre, the organization was one of the most influential lobbying groups in Washington, able to make-or-break Republican candidates with its endorsements. The group also spent hundreds of million on legal services, challenging gun control measures nationwide.

Major legal victories include last year’s Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which threw out New York state handgun regulation and started a wave of legal challenges to other gun control measures in dozens of states. The NRA supported the suit.

LaPierre’s exit adds to legal and financial difficulties for the organization.

The group’s fundraising and membership have fallen steeply in recent years, losing about a half-million members from 2021-22, according to gun violence news nonprofit The Trace.

The organization raised $213 million in 2022, about half of its 2016 total, according to the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

The New York suit, brought by state Attorney General Letitia James (D), alleges LaPierre and other senior leaders diverted millions of dollars away from the group’s charitable mission and towards luxury personal benefits.

Following an 18-month investigation, James said the NRA fostered “a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement and negligent oversight,” costing the group $64 million over three years.

The NRA and LaPierre have denied wrongdoing. The case is set to go to trial starting Monday. 

James celebrated LaPierre’s resignation in a statement Friday, while committing to continue the case. One of the demands for the trail was LaPierre’s removal as executive.

“While the end of the Wayne LaPierre era is an important victory in our case, our push for accountability continues. LaPierre's resignation validates our claims against him, but it will not insulate him or the NRA from accountability,” she said. “Our case will move ahead, and we look forward to proving the facts in court.”

Updated 4:06 p.m. Jan. 5.

“The founders of our Constitution were terrified that presidents or other federal officials or members of Congress would sell out the American national interests simply by receiving money from foreign governments and doing their bidding,” Raskin told Mika Brzezinski in comments highlighted by Mediaite. "And Donald Trump has fulfilled the worst fears and nightmares of the founders.”

Oversight Committee Democrats found that the nearly $8 million in payments Trump took in could violate the constitutional prohibition on accepting funds from foreign governments. A majority of the payments, about $5.6 million, came from China and went to Trump’s hotels in Washington and Las Vegas and Trump Tower in New York, their report found.

Raskin cautioned that the total number is likely larger because the report covered only two of Trump’s four years in office, related to only four of Trump’s more than 500 businesses and was able to examine only 20 countries. Still, it shows foreign governments and agents made payments directly to Trump-owned businesses while he was in the White House.

“So this is likely to be just a fraction of what he took,” Raskin said. “But still, the founders of our country would be absolutely scandalized, as would be every other president we’ve ever had in American history.”

“It was a money-making operation from the beginning, and we’re just starting to find the millions and millions of dollars that he collected from governments,” he continued.

Raskin said his Republican colleagues, who have launched an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over his family’s business dealings, are turning a blind eye to the “documented receipts of that taking place during the Trump administration.”

The Maryland Democrat pointed out various times throughout history when presidents received gifts or funds from other countries and turned them down. He called on Trump, the far-and-away front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, to return the $7.8 million.

“And here we have Trump just pocketing millions of dollars directly from some of the most corrupt regimes on Earth that were looking for particular things, and he continues just to go on his merry way,” Raskin said, adding the report outlines how the money from the foreign governments “definitely influenced” what Trump did in respect to China and Saudi Arabia.

Payrolls came in hot in December with 216,000 new jobs added to the economy and the unemployment rate remaining low at 3.7 percent, according to the Labor Department.

The December jobs report was another upside surprise for a labor market that defied economists’ expectations throughout 2023. But the promising state of the economy is hardly a lock in voters’ minds for the president.

Despite ample salesmanship, Biden's economic approval ratings are low. Just 32 percent of Americans gave Biden a thumbs up on the economy in a November Gallup poll.

His overall approval ratings are also weak, with 39 percent of Americans giving him a passing grade in December polling. That’s still a slight improvement from his November rating of 37 percent.

And Biden currently trails former President Trump, his likely Republican opponent, by 2 percent in The Hill/Decision Desk HQ poll tracker.

The state of the economy is likely to be top-of-mind for voters, so 2024 promises to be a year of intense economic rhetoric and argumentation. Here’s how the first jobs report of the year sets the stage.

The airport is 'on the horizon' for the soft landing

FILE - United States Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen speaks at the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards, Sept. 20, 2023, in New York. Yellen wants Latin America to trade more with the United States as part of an initiative that so far has failed to disrupt China’s dominance in global manufacturing. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)

The December jobs report is boosting confidence among policymakers that the U.S. economy is in a "soft landing," or the rebalancing of the economy toward slow and steady growth from high inflation without a recession.

After the federal government pumped trillions of dollars in stimulus into the economy and inflation took off in 2021, the Fed started raising interest rates in 2022 to slow things down, leading many economists to believe a recession was inevitable.

But despite many wrong predictions, a recession failed to materialize in 2023. The strong jobs numbers from December — along with wage growth of 4.1 percent over the past year — are yet more evidence for the soft landing scenario.

“What we’re seeing now I think we can describe as a soft landing, and my hope is that it will continue,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Friday in an interview on CNN.

“The American people did it,” she added. “The American people go to work every day, participate in the labor market, form new businesses. But President Biden has tried to create incentives that give Americans the tools they need to help this economy grow.”

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Yellen's former Fed colleagues have also noted as much.

“The airport is on the horizon,” Tom Barkin, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, said in a speech Wednesday. “Everyone is talking about the potential for a soft landing, where inflation completes its journey back to normal levels while the economy stays healthy. And you can see the case for that.”

Optimism among investors is also percolating.

“Two consecutive positive jobs reports and solid consumer spending amid easing inflation are welcome news both for consumers and investors,” Stephen J. Rich, head of investment firm Mutual of America Capital Management, wrote in a statement sent to The Hill. “A soft landing for the economy appears much more likely.”

Parties battle for control of narrative

Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) addresses reporters during a press conference on Tuesday, May 23, 2023 to introduce a social security bill. (Greg Nash)

Democrats were eager to cheer the Friday jobs report as evidence that their policies are working as the party and Biden attempt to flip voter sentiment on the economy.

“Another strong report to round out a year of sustainable job growth, and growing the economy from the bottom-up and middle-out is the new pro-worker, pro-growth strategy,” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Friday.

“By every measure, it’s working.”

Republicans, however, are keeping the focus on cost increases endured by Americans over the past two years thanks to four-decade-high inflation and the Fed's rapid rate hikes.

“The average monthly mortgage payment has increased by $1,089 and is 96 percent higher than when President Biden took office in January 2021,” Ways and Means Republicans said in a statement.

“Consumer credit debt has reached an all-time high of just over $1 trillion and the number of Americans struggling to pay credit card bills has increased sharply.”

“As the calendar turns to 2024, working families see an administration pushing the same failed policies of ‘Bidenomics’ that have caused such financial and economic struggle, frustration, and anxiety,” Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said.

Inflation is falling and gas prices are easing

President Biden gives a campaign speech on the eve of Jan. 6 attack of the Capitol at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pa., on Friday, January 5, 2024. (Greg Nash)

While Americans are still dealing with elevated inflation, Democrats are hopeful that slowing price growth will bolster their pitch to voters.

Inflation has dropped from a 9-percent annual increase in June 2022 to a 3.1-percent increase this past November, according to the Labor Department's consumer price index (CPI).

The dip in inflation comes as wage increases have broadly kept pace, with a 4.1-percent annual increase in average hourly earnings reported Friday by the Labor Department.

For the lowest-paid workers in the economy, their wage increases have outpaced inflation for a net gain throughout the pandemic.

And gas prices, which are some of the costs that consumers feel most acutely, are also on the retreat.

The national average price for a gallon of gas was $3.09 on Friday — a far cry from the $5 peak at the height of inflation.

“Right now, the average driver in America is spending over $100 less than if gas prices had stayed at their peak,” Biden touted in a Friday post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Rate cuts may be delayed as job market holds strong

Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference about the Federal Reserve's monetary policy at the Federal Reserve, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Investors had started to price in rate cuts for some time this year in anticipation of inflation returning to the Fed’s 2-percent annual expectation. 

That could lead to an additional boost for the stock market, which is already near record highs, with the S&P 500 index of major U.S. stocks up nearly 600 points since the end of October.

But the strength of the Friday jobs report will likely mean the Fed will push back rate cuts.

The chances of the Fed holding rates steady at its next meeting at the current range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent were clocked by the CME Fedwatch prediction algorithm on Friday at 95 percent.

Strengthening consumer sentiment may also be a tailwind for Biden heading into 2024, with the Michigan Survey of Consumer Sentiment soaring 14 percent in December.

Cárdenas and Bold PAC — the Congressional Hispanic Caucus's (CHC) campaign arm — are throwing their weight behind Rivas, an MIT engineer and Harvard graduate who turned to politics after working at Motorola and founding a nonprofit to encourage young girls to pursue STEM degrees.

“Bold PAC is proud to endorse Luz Rivas in CA-29. Luz has devoted herself to creating opportunities for Latino families. She has helped countless young Latinas pursue careers in technology. And she has fought to help workers advance their careers and take care of their loved ones. In Congress, she will be a powerful voice for our future,” Bold PAC Chair Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) said.

California's 29th Congressional District is a safe Democratic seat. Rivas will compete in a so-called "jungle primary," where all candidates compete against each other in a primary and the top two, regardless of party, move on to the general election.

So far, two other candidates have registered: Angélica María Dueñas, a Democratic progressive who lost the general election to Cárdenas in 2022, and Benito Bernal, a Republican who lost the 2018 general election to Cárdenas.

Cárdenas and Rivas, both electrical engineers, are graduates of the same elementary school in Pacoima, a historically disadvantaged neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.

"I look at Luz as the new and improved member of the 29th District. She's a lot smarter than me. She's a lot younger than me. She's a proven leader. She puts her heart and her efforts in the right place," said Cárdenas. 

"I mean, you know, she left being an engineer to start a nonprofit from scratch, to help little kids in our community to believe in themselves and to believe that they can go to college, believe that they can be scientists and astronauts and live their dreams."

Although Rivas is 11 years younger than Cárdenas, she attended school only one year behind Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a mechanical engineer who recruited Rivas from Pacoima, Calif., to MIT.

Padilla entered politics as campaign manager for Cárdenas's first California Assembly race in 1996.

"The water [in Pacoima has] always been the same. It's just that we had to finally let everybody know that we know how to take care of our neighborhoods. We don't need other people to do it for us. When Alex ran my campaign in '96 for the State Assembly, that was the first breakthrough," said Cárdenas.

If representation by STEM-educated Pacoima natives is Cárdenas's personal legacy, Bold PAC is his lasting mark on the political landscape.

Cárdenas led Bold PAC over three campaign cycles; he inherited a group that raised just under a million dollars for the 2014 cycle and left it after the 2020 cycle, when Bold PAC raised a little over $18 million.

Bold PAC has since been led by Reps. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Sánchez, both of whom worked with Cárdenas to recruit successful candidates, including CHC Chair Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.).

"I'm gonna miss a lot of things about Washington, DC. I have a soft spot in my heart for Bold PAC but they're in good hands. They're doing amazingly well. Their fundraising is strong. Our numbers are getting better every cycle. We have more and more members of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus — the CHC," Cárdenas said.

Biden, the president’s son, was due to appear last month before investigators from a trio of committees investigating his business dealings. Instead, he spoke on the Senate lawn reiterating his willingness to speak with the panels only in a public setting.

Lawmakers said last month they would hold Biden in contempt of Congress. 

“We’re going to move forward with contempt proceedings. … There’s a process we have to follow, but we plan to do that,” House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said Dec. 13.

After the Judiciary Committee votes on the resolution, it must be weighed before the full House.

Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, speaks during a news conference outside the Capitol, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, in Washington. Hunter Biden on Wednesday lashed out at Republican investigators who have been digging into his business dealings, insisting outside the Capitol he will only testify before a congressional committee in public. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

Biden attorney Abbe Lowell issued a statement Friday accusing the Republican committee chairs of continuing “to play politics by seeking an unprecedented contempt motion against someone who has from the first request offered to answer all their proper questions.  What are they afraid of?”

While a public rebuke of a sitting president’s son in itself would be extraordinary, a contempt of Congress resolution largely serves as a recommendation to the Justice Department, which can choose whether to bring charges.

That’s a risky proposition for Hunter Biden, who is already facing felony tax charges in California as well as charges in Delaware related to buying a weapon without disclosing drug use.

But in his press conference on the Senate lawn, he nodded to an offer by House Oversight and Accountability Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), who prior to the subpoena said he would “drop everything” if Biden wanted to testify publicly, and accused the GOP of reneging on that claim.

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He also addressed the crux of the investigation into his father.

“For six years, I’ve been the target of the unrelenting Trump attack machine shouting. ‘Where’s Hunter?’” Biden said in a statement to reporters. “Well, here’s my answer. I am here.”

“Let me state as clearly as I can: My father was not financially involved in my business. Not as a practicing lawyer. Not as a board member of Burisma. Not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not my investment at all nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist,” he said, running through a number of key aspects of the GOP probes.

“There’s no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business, because it did not happen,” Biden added.

The Justice Department in recent years has acted on just half of the contempt of Congress resolutions that have been referred by the House.

It pursued and scored convictions against both one-time White House strategist Steve Bannon and White House adviser Peter Navarro.

But it declined to bring cases against Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows or communications guru Dan Scavino. 

“Hunter Biden’s willful refusal to comply with our subpoenas constitutes contempt of Congress and warrants referral to the appropriate United States Attorney’s Office for prosecution. We will not provide him with special treatment because of his last name,” Comer and Jordan said in a joint statement.

Democrats hit Comer on Friday for failing to uphold an earlier offer to let Biden testify publicly.

“Instead of taking yes for an answer, Chairman Comer has now obstructed his own hapless investigation by denying Hunter Biden the opportunity to answer all the Committee’s questions in front of the American people and the world," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

“Chairman Comer does not want Hunter Biden to testify in public, just as he has refused to publicly release over a dozen interview transcripts, because he wants to keep up the carefully curated distortions, blatant lies, and laughable conspiracy theories that have marked this investigation.  However, the facts and the evidence all show no wrongdoing and no impeachable offense by President Biden.”

Updated at 12:45 p.m. ET

For President Biden, the attack on the Capitol — when supporters of then-President Trump stormed the complex to try and halt the certification of the 2020 election results — serves as a reminder of how fragile U.S. democracy is and the danger Trump poses to it. It is yet another example of the ongoing battle for the soul of the nation, as Biden put it during his 2020 campaign, a theme he has doubled down on as he seeks another term.

Trump, meanwhile, has minimized the events of Jan. 6 to push the narrative that he and his supporters are being unfairly targeted. He has pledged to pardon those charged with crimes in connection to the riots and continues to rail against investigations into that day, as well as his own criminal charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The conflicting approaches from the leading White House candidates reflect how, three years after the riots, the events of Jan. 6 have become yet another political tool for elected officials to use to motivate voters.

“I think obviously we’re a couple years removed, but it still seems to be very top of mind for some voters,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House official who resigned over the events of Jan. 6. “Obviously, Biden has kind of framed a lot of his messaging toward the fact that democracy is at stake, and I think that’s going to be a central theme of his campaign.”

Biden is set to speak in Valley Forge, Pa., on Friday, using a backdrop associated with the American Revolution to discuss the resonance of Jan. 6 three years later.

“This Saturday will mark the three-year anniversary of when — with encouragement from Donald Trump — a violent mob breached our nation’s Capitol. It was the first time in our nation's history that a president tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told reporters this week. 

“The threat Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only grown more dire in the years since,” she added. “Our message is clear and it is simple: We are running a campaign like the fate of our democracy depends on it. Because it does.”

Biden has been preparing for this speech throughout the week; he had lunch Wednesday with a group of scholars and historians about it. The White House said the group discussed “the ongoing threats to democracy and democratic institutions both here in America and around the world.”.

“The president tends to — and he’s done this before, he’s met with historians before — ahead of an important national moment, which we’re about to see certainly as it relates to Jan. 6,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday about the lunch.

Biden’s reelection campaign released its first paid ad of 2024 the day before the speech, which focused on democracy and attacked Trump. The 60-second ad, narrated by Biden, is set to run over the next week in key swing states and argues that Trump has made efforts to “erode American democracy and excuse — and even promote — political violence.”

Friday’s remarks will be Biden’s fifth major speech focused on democracy. His fourth was in the critical swing state of Arizona in September, during which he invoked the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Trump critic and longtime Biden friend.

The president’s other speeches on democracy took place in January 2022 to mark the first anniversary of Jan. 6,  in September 2022 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and in November 2022 in Washington, D.C., just days before the midterm elections.

“[Biden’s] not known for harsh political rhetoric or pearl-clutching, so when he speaks about threats to our democracy, the public listens. His speech on the anniversary of Jan. 6 isn’t important just because of the political ramifications, it’s important because we can never forget what Donald Trump did,” said Michael Starr Hopkins, a Democratic strategist.

The president increasingly has targeted Trump in recent remarks and in particular during speeches to donors when fundraising across the country.

Biden, while in Philadelphia last month, said Trump poses a threat to democracy and highlighted a notable anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

“I don’t believe that on our 250th anniversary, this nation will turn to Donald Trump. Folks, imagine, imagine that moment and ask: 'What do we want to be?'” Biden said. “If we do our job in 2024, we will have done something few generations have been able to say they’ve done. We will able to say literally, we saved democracy.”

Trump, meanwhile, is spending the third anniversary Saturday on the campaign trail; he has two events in Iowa planned ahead of the state’s crucial caucuses. He has invoked Jan. 6 during rallies before, most notably during his first 2024 campaign event in Waco, Texas, last April where he put his hand over his heart while a song played sung by a group of inmates that are incarcerated for their role in the attack.

But the events of Jan. 6 have also become a major source of various legal problems for Trump as he seeks the GOP nomination and a return to the White House in 2024.

Trump was indicted in August by federal prosecutors over his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election, which culminated with the Jan. 6 riots, when his supporters tried to halt the official proceeding to certify the results.

Decisions in Colorado and Maine, if allowed to stand, would remove Trump from the ballot on the grounds that he engaged in an insurrection, barring him from a second White House term under a clause in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Trump’s campaign is appealing both rulings — and he will remain on the ballot in those states until the cases plays out legally.

The former president for weeks after the 2020 election falsely claimed it was rigged and fraudulent. He later encouraged his supporters to descend on Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, the day Congress was to certify the results, and during a rally that day near the White House, he urged those in attendance to make their voices heard at the Capitol.

Trump has downplayed the events of Jan. 6 while campaigning and framed his prosecution and charges against hundreds of rioters as politically motivated.

“I call them the ‘J-6 hostages,’ not prisoners. I call them the hostages, what’s happened. And you know, it’s a shame,” Trump said at a November rally.

The former president has said he would consider pardoning some of those charged in connection to the Capitol attack, and he spoke earlier this year at a fundraiser organized for Jan. 6 defendants.

Some Trump allies view the focus from Democrats on Jan. 6 as overblown.

“I just think that Democrats wake up every morning … and they look at the calendar, the iPhone says Jan. 6, 2021. The date never changes,” former senior Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said during a recent Fox News appearance. “And then they get into an electric vehicle and go get an abortion. I just described the Democratic Party to you in seven seconds.”

But polling ahead of the third anniversary of the attack suggests Jan. 6 still resonates with a large swath of voters.

A Washington Post-University of Maryland survey published Tuesday found 53 percent of the public say Trump bears at least a “good amount” of responsibility for the attack at the Capitol.

The poll also found 55 percent of Americans say the events of Jan. 6 should never be forgotten, including 86 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of independents, a sign the issue could effectively turn out the voters Biden will need to win reelection.

But, in a sign of the effect of Trump’s constant claims that the 2020 election was rigged, the poll also found 62 percent of Americans said Biden’s win was legitimate, down 7 percentage points from 2021.

“President Biden has earned the trust of the American people and owes it to them to ensure that we never forget how delicate our democratic experiment can be when left in the wrong hands,” said Hopkins, CEO of Northern Starr Strategies.

DeSantis, who has focused much of his presidential campaign in the Hawkeye State ahead of its first-in-the-nation caucuses, also voiced support for Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), who has endorsed him, and local law enforcement after the shooting.

“I don't support infringing the rights of law-abiding citizens with respect to the ability to exercise their constitutional rights,” DeSantis said in an NBC News interview. “I know these [regulations] can be used to try to target things, and a lot of the things that are proposed would not have even prevented any of these [shootings].”

The shooting at a high school in Perry, Iowa, injured multiple students and resulted in the death of the gunman, The Associated Press reported Thursday. Students described a traumatic experience at the school.

The Florida governor said lawmakers should focus on mental health in order to combat school shootings, while noting that a motive is unclear in the Perry incident.

“For whatever reason, there are people in our society that really get a kick out of doing this,” DeSantis said. “And you have people that put it online and do all that. And that's an underlying sickness in society. And I think that involves things like mental health.”

“We obviously have a responsibility to create safe environments,” he continued. “Federal government is probably not going to be leading that effort, I think it is more of a local and state issue.”

He pointed to his record in Florida, where he led the state’s legislative response to the Parkland, Fla., school shooting that killed 17 people in 2018.

“One of the things I've done as governor of Florida was respond to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas [High School] shooting that happened before I was governor. We got a recommendations report, and we've done over a billion dollars for school security and involves a lot of different things,” he said. 

“But as the father of three young kids who are in school — first grade, kindergarten and pre-K — all we want is parents to have safety in the schools. So we've put a lot of emphasis on this,” he added.

The shooting comes just over a week before the Iowa caucuses, set for Jan. 15.

“It has been an honor to serve the great people of the Third Congressional District and State of Missouri these past several years. However, after a lot of thoughtful discussion with my family, I have decided to not file for re-election and retire at the end of my term in December,” Luetkemeyer, 71, said in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter.

“As we tackle the many challenges we face, I hope we remember what someone once said, that ‘the greatness of our country is not found in the halls of Congress but in the hearts and homes of our people,’” Luetkemeyer said. “That assessment is still true today. As we look into the future, I believe if we work hard, stay together, and believe in ourselves our best days are indeed still ahead.”

Luetkemeyer, who joined Congress in 2009, was seen as a top contender to replace retiring House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), who is also retiring at the end of the term. Luetkemeyer is the chair of the Financial Services Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions.

Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), the vice chair of the committee, is seen as another strong contender to be its next chair if Republicans keep the House GOP majority. 

Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District that Luetkemeyer is vacating, which includes areas to the north, south, and west of St. Louis, is a solidly Republican district.

The United States determined North Korea had recently provided Russia with a ballistic missile launcher and several ballistic missiles, John Kirby, a White House spokesperson for national security issues, told reporters. 

Russia used at least one of those missiles in a Dec. 30, 2023, strike against Ukraine, and multiple others during a strike carried out Tuesday, Kirby said.

“We expect Russia and North Korea to learn from these launches, and we anticipate that Russia will use additional North Korean missiles to target Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and to kill innocent Ukrainian civilians,” he said.

Kirby said the U.S. determined the Dec. 30 missile appeared to have landed in an open field in Ukraine. Officials are still assessing the impacts of the Jan. 2 launch, he said.

“This is a significant and concerning escalation in the DPRK's support for Russia,” Kirby said.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby addresses reporters during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, January 3, 2024. Kirby discussed the situations in Iran and Israel-Palestine among other topics.

In return for providing Russia with ballistic missiles, Kirby said the U.S. believes North Korea is seeking fighter aircraft, surface to air missiles and other advanced technology to upgrade its own military capabilities.

The White House has for months been warning about a burgeoning partnership between North Korea and Russia as Moscow carries out its war against Ukraine. North Korea in October delivered more than 1,000 containers of munitions and other equipment to Russia.

“Due in part to our sanctions and export controls, Russia has become increasingly isolated on the world stage, and they’ve been forced to look to like-minded states for military equipment,” Kirby said Thursday. “As we’ve been warning publicly, one of those states is North Korea.”

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The escalation by Moscow comes as the White House has acknowledged it has run out of approved funding to provide military aid to Ukraine to defend itself against invading Russian forces.

The Biden administration announced a final round of $250 million in funding in late December to bolster Ukraine’s air defense capabilities and provide other equipment. But White House officials have stressed the U.S. will be unable to approve additional aid without congressional action.

Russia fired some 500 missiles and drones from Dec. 29 to Jan. 2, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as Moscow ramps up its winter offensive. The strikes have killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians and injured hundreds more.

Updated 1:37 p.m.