President Donald Trump questioned the integrity of the midterm elections on Monday, less than a week after the Republican Party suffered historic defeats in both swing states and former GOP strongholds.

“Does anybody really believe that this ‘Election’ was honest,” Trump asked in a Truth Social post early Monday. “How could the Polls be so wrong???”  

“Some early voting ‘dumps’ were so large that it was impossible to win, no matter how many people went to vote,” he continued, adding: “It’s all about the machines, which are far more important than the voter!” His post did not elaborate on what was meant by the statement.

Read more: Welcome to Trump’s Lame-Duck Era

Trump’s unsubstantiated fraud claims come nearly two weeks after he told reporters on Oct. 27 that he would respect the election results “if they’re honest elections.”

As results came in throughout Nov. 3 and into Nov. 4, Trump seemed to accept the outcome.

“My message is, congratulations to the Democrats, and I look forward to working with you for the good of our country,” Trump told CBS News in an election-night phone call. 

It was a sentiment he repeated in an interview that aired Sunday on 60 Minutes, when he said he would be willing to work with Democrats on immigration, addressing an issue that had been top-of-mind for voters ahead of Election Day. “I think that's something that's actually doable," he said.

By Monday morning, however, Trump was casting doubt on the results. The comment harkens back to Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election interference and ensuing lawsuits after he lost the presidency to Joe Biden in 2020.

Trump's history of election denial

Trump was sowing doubt on the 2020 election before voting began, telling the public that August that “the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.”

Following his loss, Trump refused to concede to Biden. Instead, he began to spread conspiracy theories about widespread election fraud, without evidence.

On Nov. 7, 2020, shortly before news organizations projected Biden’s victory, Trump falsely declared on Twitter that he had “WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!”

Echoing Trump’s false claims also became a test of loyalty within the Republican Party, with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, and former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene among those who espoused the false view.

Trump and his allies filed 62 lawsuits challenging or seeking to overturn the results between Nov. 4, 2020, and Jan. 6, 2021, according to the House Jan. 6 committee. Only one produced a victory—a narrow Pennsylvania ruling that didn’t establish fraud or change the outcome. Some cases were dismissed on procedural grounds; others failed on the merits.

The legal defeats did not stop Trump from repeating his false claims.

On Dec. 22, 2020, he alleged on social media that Democrats had “DUMPED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BALLOTS IN THE SWING STATES LATE IN THE EVENING.” 

The claims escalated on Jan. 5, 2021, when Trump tweeted: “Washington is being inundated with people who don’t want to see an election victory stolen by emboldened Radical Left Democrats.” 

This followed repeated calls for his supporters to descend upon Washington D.C. and protest the results.

As Congress met to count and certify the Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

His efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat also led to criminal charges. In August 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith brought four federal charges against Trump, alleging efforts to subvert the results through pressure on officials, fraudulent elector slates, and interference with certification. Trump pleaded not guilty.

On the campaign trail in 2024, he doubled down on his allegations of election interference by urging voters to deliver a victory that was “too big to rig.”

The case was dismissed in November that year, after his reelection, because of Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting President.

President Donald Trump doubled down on his support of Pete Hegseth amid a Republican-led effort to impeach the embattled Defense Secretary, as Congress returns Monday for a lame-duck session after the Democrats' sweeping victories in the midterms.

“He’s guilty of two things: basically winning two wars,” Trump said of Hegseth Sunday evening, praising U.S. military operations in Venezuela and Iran. “It’s awfully hard to say, ‘Let’s impeach somebody who did that.’”

The President’s remarks came after he said he still has confidence in Hegseth and referred to efforts of impeachment as "very unfair" during a sit-down interview with CBS' 60 Minutes.

Despite Trump’s continued defense of Hegseth, attempts to impeach the Defense Secretary come from within his own party, as Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky is preparing to reintroduce a privileged resolution.

The measure includes eight articles of impeachment, accusing Hegseth of violating the War Powers Resolution of 1973, citing the lack of congressional oversight on the Iran war which Massie argues was “unlawful from its inception.” Another charge accuses Hegseth of “ignoring laws that minimize civilian casualties.” Outside of the Iran conflict, the charges also allege the “kidnapping of a sovereign foreign leader,” in reference to the U.S.’ capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in January—an act Massie says was carried out “without constitutional or legal authority.” 

Massie's renewed push follows an earlier effort in September, when he sought to force a House vote on impeaching Hegseth. However, Speaker Mike Johnson recessed the House early, preventing the measure from reaching the floor.

On Monday, Massie said he's seen some members of the House say Hegseth “has been effective and they agree with the war, so they’ll vote not to impeach,” without naming any lawmakers in particular. “That’s not the question though. The question is whether he committed impeachable acts, and the answer is yes,” Massie argued.

If Massie re-files his articles of impeachment against Hegseth as privileged, it would mean ​the House must take up the issue within two legislative days. It’s unclear how this would affect the five-week lame-duck session, as government funding runs out after Dec. 11 and lawmakers still need to make a deal to avert a government shutdown.

Hegseth has staunchly pushed back against the impeachment threat. In a video posted to social media, he accused his critics of pursuing a politically-motivated campaign against him.

“A disgruntled, defeated Congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly, just like they tried against President Trump twice,” Hegseth said, referring to the two impeachments of Trump during his first term as President. “It’s all about the politics of personal destruction—didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me,” he vowed.

In a statement to TIME Monday morning, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Hegseth “will not back down or be deterred by politicians seeking to score partisan points or launch phony investigations where no wrongdoing exists.” 

He said that the Defense Department has “followed the law and our Secretary will continue to stand and fight every single day to support and defend the Constitution, lead our troops, and protect America” and added that Hegseth is “100% committed to leading the Department until the end of President Trump’s term in office.”

TIME has also reached out to the White House for comment.

Top House Democrat supports push to impeach Hegseth

Massie, who lost the Republican primary in May to a challenger endorsed by Trump, already has the support of a number of Democrats, including Hakeem Jeffries, who is widely expected to be the next House Speaker come January.

During an appearance on ABC's This Week Sunday, Jeffries said: “I’m a hard 'yes' on the Hegseth resolution.”

Accusing Hegseth of abusing his position, Jeffries continued. “The so-called Secretary of Defense has abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe.”

Jeffries follows in the footsteps of Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat in the House Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who have also pledged to back Massie’s impeachment efforts.

The split over the Iran war

In the fallout of the midterm rout, the Republican Party appears to be split over the Iran war—and the extent of its impact on voters.

Vice President J.D. Vance said the day after the election that “the reason we lost is the war.” Trump, in his 60 Minutes interview that was filmed Friday and released Sunday, said he didn't disagree with Vance's analysis, but doubled down on the inception of the war. “The only thing I wish he would have said there, if he felt it, and you'd have to ask him about that, but, ‘If you had it to do again, would you do it?’” Trump said, before adding: “My answer is an emphatic 'yes.'”

The Iran war remains vastly unpopular with Americans. A midterm exit poll showed that 74% of voters thought the Iran war was a crucial or major factor when casting their ballot. The conflict is estimated to have cost American taxpayers around $47.1 billion so far. The financial fallout of the war has added to the cost-of-living pressures facing many Americans, with soaring diesel prices proving to be a key concern among voters.

Democrats, meanwhile, have long argued for more congressional overview regarding the Iran war. Some Republicans, including Massie and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, have also questioned the boundaries of the presidential war powers. In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in July, Murkowski questioned Hegseth as to why Congress hadn’t been asked for authorization. Hegseth, in response, acknowledged the “long-standing legal debate on this particular topic” but insisted that the Department of Defense shares “the position of the White House, that we have all the authorities necessary at this moment.”

The embattled AI data annotation firm Sama is winding down its operations and liquidating its assets, according to a letter to creditors reviewed by TIME.

The letter, dated Nov. 6, blames “declining revenues due to increased competition that was compounded by recent class action litigation that would have required significant resources and years to defend successfully.” The letter does not specify which class-action litigation contributed to Sama's financial difficulties. The company has faced separate such lawsuits in Kenya and the U.S.

An unaudited balance sheet attached to the letter shows Sama had approximately $1 million in assets and $17 million in liabilities as of October.

TIME previously reported that Sama performed content moderation for Meta and data labeling for OpenAI, work that employees said exposed them to traumatic content without adequate safeguards. 

Read More: Inside Facebook’s African Sweatshop

Sama and Meta are facing lawsuits in Kenya related to allegations that former Facebook content moderators were exploited and illegally terminated after they raised concerns, and that Sama illegally suppressed a unionization effort.

Specifically, Daniel Motaung, a former Sama moderator who was fired in 2019 after trying to organize a strike, sued Sama and Meta in 2022, claiming violations of constitutional rights including freedom of association, dignity and fair working conditions, as well as alleged forced labour and human trafficking. His petition has since been consolidated with a separate one brought by former moderators who allege they were unlawfully made redundant and blacklisted. Sama has said it complied with Kenyan labor law, and Meta denied responsibility for the working conditions. 

Earlier this year, Sama separately came under fire for its work handling data from Meta’s AI-powered smart glasses. Workers told Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten that they were required to review private content from the glasses’ cameras, including people using the toilet, changing clothes, and having sex. Sama was initially named as a defendant in several proposed class-action privacy lawsuits against Meta and glasses manufacturer Luxottica, but plaintiffs voluntarily dropped their claims against Sama in August. (Meta denies the claims and says it will fight them, adding that while it may review data from smart glasses to improve its products, it takes steps to filter out private information. Luxottica did not respond to a request for comment.)

On October 23, Samasource Impact Sourcing, Inc., the U.S. company operating as Sama,  transferred its assets to a newly formed company, Sama ABC, to oversee their sale and distribute the proceeds to creditors. Sama ABC is administered by “professionals who specialize in liquidating insolvent or otherwise financially distressed companies for the benefit of their creditors,” according to the letter. Despite the similar names, the letter says Sama ABC is not corporately affiliated with the company. 

“Sama leaves a highly regarded legacy as being one of the earliest champions of impact sourcing: a model centered on deliberately hiring individuals from marginalized communities in East Africa,” the letter states. “Through this model, the company directly impacted over seventy thousand lives with life skills and technical training and employment in digital work at high living wages and benefits. Its impact extended throughout the communities it served due to the material wealth ripple effect created by its targeted employment model.”

The letter notes that a bank has a priority claim to “substantially all” of the company's assets. The letter does not say what the liquidation means for the ongoing case in Kenya.

An email to Sama’s press inbox bounced. Sama’s CEO, Wendy Gonzalez, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sama ABC representatives did not respond to emails or phone calls.

Sometimes you need to climb 30 ft. in the air, atop a modified oil rig, to get a better view of what’s coming next. In October, TIME’s Justin Worland did just that when he traveled to southwestern Utah, where Fervo Energy is adopting fossil-fuel technologies for a rapidly changing energy landscape.

Read the 2026 TIME100 Climate list here

When we launched TIME100 Climate in 2023, funding from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, the single largest climate investment in American history, was starting to flow through the U.S. economy, making the country an exemplar of how government policy can influence climate action. Three years later, we’re in a very different world—with signals that new investment is being driven less by direction from Washington than by desire from markets.

In May, Fervo Energy staged one of the largest U.S. clean-energy initial public offerings in history. This was fueled by the geothermal-energy company’s Cape Station plant in Utah, with 100 MW of power scheduled by the end of 2026 and an additional 400 MW planned in 2028—which would be enough to power 500,000 homes. In September, Google signed a landmark deal for the plant to supply power to a future data center in the area.

That promise of clean data-center power is largely driving the enthusiasm of this new moment. Investments in clean energy will nearly double those in fossil fuels this year, according to the International Energy Agency. “Around the world, countries and companies are turning to technologies that were developed as climate solutions and now also offer energy security, speed, reliability, and increasingly attractive economics,” Worland writes in this issue.

Our 2026 TIME100 Climate, co-edited by Emma Barker Bonomo and Kyla Mandel, looks at Fervo’s CEO Tim Latimer and 99 other individuals who are leading and navigating this transformation. To assemble this group, our editors and correspondents reviewed hundreds of names, with a particular focus on those who achieved measurable and sustainable action over the past 12 months.

What we found was a global story: At Start Campus in Portugal, CEO Robert Dunn led the design and development of the 1.2-gigawatt Sines Data Campus, an AI data center to be run entirely on renewable power and cooled by seawater. At the end of last year, Microsoft announced a $10 billion investment in Sines. In neighboring Spain, CEO Mario Ruiz-Tagle has led Iberdrola España through a period of rapid expansion of the country’s wind and solar resources, which set the average Spanish household up to see a 10-euro savings on monthly energy bills since March, even as Europe is hit hard by high oil prices.

It’s noteworthy that value—not values—is driving much of this change. While advocates have argued for decades that shifting to sustainable, renewable, noncarbon energy is simply the right thing to do, people everywhere are finding that moving away from fossil fuels is the right move for their bottom lines. India’s Mahindra Last Mile Mobility, led by CEO Suman Mishra, grew 85% year-over-year in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027 to become the country’s market leader in electric three-wheelers. In Chile, Juan Carlos Muñoz spearheaded Chile’s transition to electric public transportation; Santiago now has the largest fleet outside of China. And in Kenya and Rwanda, BasiGo CEO Jit Bhattacharya is pioneering leased electric buses and charging infrastructure to cut diesel buses.

These innovators join a host of groundbreaking thinkers, investors, and pioneers who continue to write new playbooks for climate action, reminding us the world is full of leaders keeping their eyes on the future.