Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he will step down as the country’s leader, capping off nearly 10 years in office that included a handful of public blunders and controversies. 

"I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process," Trudeau told reporters Monday. "Last night, I asked the president of the Liberal Party to begin that process. This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election."

His resignation comes after pressure from his own party, ​​the Liberal Party, mounted over his handling of the economy and immigration.

Fox News Digital took a look at Trudeau’s years in office and compiled his top five biggest blunders that sparked condemnation from Canadians and other nations. 

JUSTIN TRUDEAU'S RESIGNATION MET WITH GLEEFUL REACTION FROM CONSERVATIVES ONLINE: 'THE WINNING CONTINUES!'

Trudeau found himself in a scandal in 2019 after photos surfaced of him wearing blackface in 2001. The prime minister said in an interview after the fact that he could not give a definitive number on how many times he had worn blackface. 

"Darkening your face, regardless of the context or the circumstances, is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface," he said in 2019.

CANADIAN MP SLAMS TRUDEAU FOR 'BLACKFACE' WHILE ACCUSING 'PATRIOTIC' FREEDOM CONVOY OF RACISM

"I should have understood that then, and I never should have done it."

One photo from 2001 showed Trudeau at an Arabian Nights-themed gala wearing brownface. He also admitted that while in high school he wore blackface while singing the popular Jamaican song "Day-O." In another instance, video footage from the 1990s showed Trudeau in blackface. The prime minister said at the time he could not recall how many times he wore blackface or brownface, a comment that haunted him in the following years as right-leaning lawmakers unleashed on Trudeau for his handling of the coronavirus in the 2020 era.

"I will ask the prime minister, who may I remind this House wore blackface on more times than he can remember, apologize to the peace-loving, patriotic Canadians who are outside right now," Conservative Member of Parliament Candice Bergen said of Trudeau in 2022 while demanding that he apologize to protesters who spoke out against the country’s strict coronavirus mandates.

Canada had some of the strictest coronavirus mandates and requirements in the world, including making vaccinations mandatory in federally regulated workplaces, shutting down businesses for months and arresting citizens if they violated lockdown protocols. 

In response to the lockdowns that disrupted the economy and day-to-day life, Canadians staged multiple protests across the country in 2022. Known as the "Freedom Convoy," thousands of 18-wheelers and other trucks traveled to cities, as well as the Ambassador Bridge between Canada and Michigan, to protest vaccine mandates.

Trudeau slammed the truckers and protesters as spreading "hateful rhetoric" while heaping praise on Black Lives Matter, which was at the forefront of the "defund the police" protests that rocked the U.S. in 2020.

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"I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues. Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that," Trudeau said in 2022. 

"But I have also chosen to not go anywhere near protests that have expressed hateful rhetoric, violence toward fellow citizens, and a disrespect not just of science but of the front-line health workers and, quite frankly, the 90% of truckers who have been doing the right thing to keep Canadians safe, to put food on our tables. Canadians know where I stand. This is a moment for responsible leaders to think carefully about where they stand and who they stand with," he continued.

The Freedom Convoy protests were reported as being overwhelmingly peaceful by local media.

Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski was repeatedly arrested, fined and imprisoned for breaking lockdown measures during the pandemic, sparking fierce condemnation from Christians and others worldwide. 

In one viral video from 2021, police in Alberta were seen arresting and charging Pawlowski for "organizing an illegal in-person gathering" during Holy Week ahead of Easter.

"Shame on you guys, this is not Communist China. Don't you have family and kids? Whatever happened to 'Canada, God keep our land glorious and free'?" Pawlowski told the arresting officers. 

Amid his legal battles, Pawlowski slammed Trudeau for his arrests.

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"I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to worship as I see fit, free to stand up for what I believe is right," Pawlowski told Fox Digital in 2023. "Should we throw all of that out and move to Saudi Arabia? I think Justin Trudeau would fit in perfectly over there. Or maybe North Korea would be better for him. He loves dictatorship. I'll buy him a ticket. Go, please enjoy it."

Restaurants and other business owners in the country were rocked by lockdown orders, including some businesses bucking the mandates and opening their doors during the pandemic. 

In Toronto, one restaurant owner was seen handcuffed by police for defying the orders in 2020, while other business owners launched lawsuits at their government for imposing mandates on businesses during the pandemic.

A report published in 2023 found an increase in restaurants that filed for bankruptcy as they dealt with a "post-pandemic hangover phase," the CBC reported at the time.

Trudeau, while describing himself as a "proud feminist," admonished U.S. voters for electing President-elect Donald Trump after his decisive win over Vice President Harris in November.

"We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult, march towards progress," Trudeau said in December. "And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president."

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"Everywhere, women’s rights and women’s progress is under attack, overtly and subtly," Trudeau continued. "I want you to know that I am, and always will be, a proud feminist. You will always have an ally in me and in my government."

The remarks came after Trudeau's meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Trump reportedly suggested to Trudeau during the meeting that Canada become the 51st state and has since publicly referred to Canada as such.

The Canadian Parliament came under fire in 2023 when members gave a man who fought for the Nazis a standing ovation. Trudeau and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were both present in parliament when the man, 99-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, received applause. 

CANADA UNDER FIRE FOR APPLAUDING 'LITERAL NAZI' IN PARLIAMENT DURING ZELENSKYY VISIT

Hunka, a Ukrainian-Canadian who fought in the SS Division Galicia for the Nazis, was invited to Parliament to attend Zelenskyy's address to government officials. Members of Parliament from political parties on either side of the aisle stood and applauded Hunka for his military service before news broke that he fought on behalf of Nazi Germany. 

Trudeau apologized for the embarrassment, while the speaker of Canada's House of Commons stepped down for inviting Hunka. 

"This is a mistake that deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada," Trudeau said at the time.

"All of us who were in this House on Friday regret deeply having stood and clapped even though we did so unaware of the context," he added. "It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust."

Members of the U.S. intelligence community who believed that the coronavirus may have originated from a lab leak in China were blocked from sharing their opinions and research with the broader intel community, according to sources inside the FBI and other government officials familiar with the Biden administration's internal efforts during the pandemic.

In the first few months after COVID arrived in the U.S., the prevailing view within the Biden administration was that COVID-19 most likely originated organically in Wuhan, China, and was transferred to humans from infected animals. They said this was potentially due to the country's under-regulated and extensive wildlife trade. This viewpoint was opposed by a much smaller group within the intel community, who believed a purposeful or accidental lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the likely cause of the outbreak. 

Now, it has come to light in a new Wall Street Journal report that some of those officials who believed in the likelihood of a COVID-19 lab-leak theory were reportedly blocked by the Biden administration from sharing their viewpoints with the president and other intelligence community leaders.

Early in Joe Biden's presidency, he tasked the U.S. intelligence community with preparing a report on their most updated analysis on the origins of the coronavirus. The report came amid China's blocking of U.S. officials' access to the Wuhan Institute, preventing them from adequately studying the virus' origins.

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At the time, the FBI was the only government agency concluding that a lab leak origin theory was most likely. 

Yet, according to FBI senior scientist Jason Bannan, who was tasked with helping lead the agency's investigation into COVID-19's origins, neither he nor any of his agency counterparts were invited to share their assessment during an August 2021 briefing with the president, led by the White House's National Intelligence Council, that sought to share the intel community's position on natural versus artificial origins of COVID-19.

"Being the only agency that assessed that a laboratory origin was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest level of confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic, we anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing," Bannan told the Wall Street Journal. "I find it surprising that the White House didn’t ask."

Additionally, according to sources familiar with the matter, three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, a sub-agency within the Department of Defense's Defense Intelligence Agency, were also blocked from sharing their research that concluded the coronavirus originated from a lab leak. Ultimately, a Defense Intelligence Agency Inspector General report was commissioned to find out whether the three scientists' assessment was suppressed.

A spokesperson for the ODNI declined to comment on the report, which has yet to be released. 

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The three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, John Hardham, Robert Cutlip and Jean-Paul Chretien, argued that evidence they found had shown that Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were conducting dangerous "gain-of-function" research. In turn, the trio informed their counterparts, including someone at the FBI on Bannan's team, about their findings. However, in July 2021, the three scientists were told by their superiors to halt any continued sharing of their work with people at the FBI, which they were told was "off the reservation," the Wall Street Journal reported.

In response to the assertions made in the Wall Street Journal's report, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the intelligence community-wide assessment of the origins of COVID-19 included input "from across the community on the two main hypotheses of the origins of the pandemic in line with all of the Intelligence Community’s analytic standards, including objectivity." 

The spokesperson added that efforts were made to ensure that both of these viewpoints were included in the intelligence assessment, in line with the "standard process" for typical coordination of a National Intelligence Council assessment.

Oklahoma will consider a new measure to make the role of school district superintendent an elected position in response to a spate of controversial situations involving scholastic leaders, Fox News Digital has learned.

There have been allegations and news reports about several issues: the refusal to remove "pornographic books" from school libraries, the dismissal of a teacher for failure to comply with a COVID-19 face mask mandate, and media coverage of "nothing [being] done" in response to reports a school football coach was bragging about sexual conquests with parents.

In 2021, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt called firings of mask-averse teachers "preposterous" and said their talents are needed more than ever.

"This is about a school district not following state law — this isn’t a debate about masks," he said, after the Oklahoma City district reportedly fired multiple educators, adding the state previously banned such firings.

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In February, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Schools Ryan Walters — who is an elected official himself — threatened to lower the accreditation of Edmond, Oklahoma, schools if it didn’t remove the books "The Glass Castle" and "Kite Runner" from its high school libraries.

Walters called the inaction "subversion of accountability," though Edmond’s superintendent said the state lacked authority to remove the books based on a 1997 district policy.

In another case, in Edmond, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz from neighboring Texas, among others, blasted videos showing a portion of a school fundraiser wherein students were licking each other's toes. 

In a public statement, school officials appeared to celebrate the event:

"This afternoon, Deer Creek High School announced a grand total of $152,830.38 raised for Not Your Average Joe Coffee, an organization created to 'inspire our community by including students and adults with intellectual, developmental and physical disabilities," school staff wrote. 

"All participants in the assembly were students who signed up for the game(s) they played ahead of time. No Deer Creek faculty or staff participated in any of the games during this Clash of Classes assembly," a portion of the latter part of the statement read.

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Walters called the fundraiser "filth," and Cruz said it was "child abuse."

In another district on the Arkansas line, now-former Muldrow Superintendent Leon Ashlock resigned after driving drunk and crashing a school vehicle on Creek Turnpike. Two 100-proof bottles of cinnamon schnapps were found in its console, according to KOCO.

Walters told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that a case involving a school’s response to an athletic director’s criminal exploits with a student also drew his attention.

"Even in a conservative state like Oklahoma, where voters have overwhelmingly made clear they want the radical progressive policies of the left out of public schools, we continually see superintendents defying their will, ignoring their concerns, and refusing to take action necessary to improve education outcomes while protecting Oklahoma children," Walters said.

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"This has to end."

"And, the best way to do that is by requiring superintendents to be elected by the voters."

Walters called the legislation a common-sense solution to efforts to improve education for Sooner State children.

Walters previously made headlines when he led his state in becoming the first to appropriate funding toward supplying a Bible to each school. The official said the move blunts "woke curricula" and provides students a "historical document" that the founders used to form their government.

A congressional subcommittee concluded its two-year investigation on the coronavirus pandemic on Monday, finding that COVID-19 likely originated from a lab in Wuhan, China, and that social distancing and masking were not backed with scientific data.

The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its final 520-page report that stated "COVID-19 most likely emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China." 

In support of the "lab leak" theory, the report said the subcommittee learned that the virus had a biological characteristic that is not found in nature and that data showed all COVID-19 cases stemming from a single introduction to humans.

"By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced," the report says.

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The report also noted that China’s foremost SARS research lab is in Wuhan, "which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels," and that researchers at the lab "were sick with a COVID-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market."

Initial rumors swirled at the beginning of the pandemic that China’s wet markets, which are known for selling meat, fish, produce and exotic animals in unsanitary conditions, were the origin of the virus.

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The report also found that social distancing "was not based on science."

"During closed door testimony, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci testified that the guidance, ‘sort of just appeared,’" the report states.

Fauci was the public face of the federal government's coronavirus pandemic response. He has faced intense criticism for his handling of the pandemic.

The subcommittee also found "no conclusive evidence" that wearing masks protected Americans from COVID-19. 

The measures led to long-term impacts on American adults and children. The report found that unemployment skyrocketed and children "lost decades worth of academic progress."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the public face of the federal government's coronavirus pandemic response, is facing criticism on social media over a manuscript published in a top journal where he maintains his position that the virus originated in nature and cites a debunked claim that President-elect Trump told Americans to inject themselves with bleach to stop the virus.

Fauci, along with researcher Gregory Folkers, published a paper in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal this week with the title, "HIV/AIDS and COVID-19: Shared Lessons from Two Pandemics."

Fauci, who faced intense criticism for his handling of the pandemic, was critical of Trump’s handling of the pandemic in the paper.

"With COVID-19, the role of political leadership at the highest level – or the lack thereof – was again shown to be critical," the authors wrote. "As COVID-19 exploded globally and in the United States, President Donald Trump frequently minimized the seriousness of the pandemic, repeatedly claiming that COVID-19 would just ‘go away’ In the first full year of the pandemic (2020, the last year of his presidency) he failed to use his bully pulpit to encourage people to use available ‘low-tech’ tools such as masks/respirators, better ventilation, and physical distancing to reduce the risk of infection."

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"Trump also gave credence to unproven and potentially dangerous substances for COVID-19 prevention and treatment such as bleach injections, the antimalarial hydroxychloroquine and the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. Many of his hundreds of communications during the COVID-19 pandemic were missed opportunities for political leadership in promoting policies and practices to mitigate the impact of a raging pandemic."

The paper also says that "abundant evidence from top evolutionary virologists and leading scientists in other fields strongly suggests that the virus jumped species from an animal reservoir to humans in the Huanan market in Wuhan, China, and then spread throughout China and the rest of the world." 

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Several media outlets have fact-checked and debunked the claim that Trump instructed people to inject themselves with bleach including Politifact, which called President Biden’s accusation "mostly false."

"Fauci is an embarrassment," conservative communicator Steve Guest posted on X.

"Oy vey," National Review contributor Pradeep Shanker posted on X.

"Fauci is out with a new scientific paper on HIV/AIDS & COVID-19 where he falsely claims Trump told people to inject bleach & where he argues COVID-19 has a natural origin (Wuhan lab leak not even mentioned) by citing the same authors who wrote the infamous Proximal Origins paper," author and journalist Jerry Dunleavy posted on X. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the NIH for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Outgoing Independent West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin slammed some of the advice President Biden received during his time in office, arguing that the guidance created blindspots for the president on inflation, immigration and Afghanistan.

Appearing on CBS’s "The Takeout" podcast on Friday, Manchin recounted how he tried to convince Biden to work across the aisle on the American Rescue Plan and how he warned about the dangers of inflation if Democrats went through with plans to extend unemployment benefits through October 2021, but was ignored thanks to the advice of 17 Nobel laureates.

"I warned of that, and I got criticized, as you recall, they told me they had 17 Nobel laureates," Manchin said, later arguing that they were "17 educated idiots" that were telling Biden "what you want to hear because you paid them."

Manchin, who in the early days of Biden’s administration was still part of the Democratic Party, played a critical role in determining how much of the new president’s agenda would make its way through the Senate. 

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Democrats held a slim majority in the upper chamber throughout Biden’s term and depended on the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris to pass the administration’s agenda, meaning the moderate West Virginia senator’s cooperation was key in getting many items passed.

Manchin would eventually decide not to run for re-election and leave the Democratic Party altogether after a decades-long political career in the party, arguing that he had to be "true" to himself.

"To stay true to myself and remain committed to put country before party, I have decided to register as an independent with no party affiliation and continue to fight for America’s sensible majority," Manchin said in a May 2024 announcement.

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During his interview with CBS, Manchin noted that Congress had worked in a bipartisan manner with the Trump administration to send out stimulus checks in the early days of pandemic shutdowns, arguing that lawmakers had "erred" on the side of action but later came to realize that pumping so much money into the economy "was a mistake."

Nevertheless, Manchin recalled that Biden went immediately to the budget reconciliation process to attempt to pass the American Rescue Plan through the Senate, something the then-Democratic senator resisted.

"Remember when I stopped and it shut down for about eight or 10 hours? That’s because they were extending unemployment benefits and we had a vaccine that worked. And I told him then, I said, ‘You’ve got a vaccine that’s working, you’ve got people that have got money because we sent a check to everybody,’" Manchin said, adding that he warned that after months of lockdowns and several rounds of stimulus, American spending was likely to inflate the economy.

"You’ve got inflation coming at you hard when you do this, and now you’re still keeping people out of the workforce because you’re going to give them an extension clear up until October 2021 of unemployment benefits, and they can’t go back and can’t be threatened to lose their unemployment benefits," Manchin said. "You’ve got a perfect storm hitting you."