As 2024 comes to a close, Steve Deace, Todd Erzen, and Aaron McIntire are doing some reflecting on all that’s occurred over the past 366 days of this wild and unprecedented leap year.

“What a strange trip it has been,” says Deace.

The team takes on the challenging task of narrowing down the craziest events and happenings of 2024 into the top 10 stories of the year.

10. Adventures in 'Scamdemia'

On January 2, 2024, Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned after journalist Christopher Rufo exposed her as a plagiarist. His investigation revealed that Gay used a number of uncited sources in her doctoral thesis.

“That was the beginning of a year on college and university campuses that was marked with intimidation and, in some cases, violence against Jewish students from pro-Hamas orcs as Israel continued its war against Hamas,” says McIntire, noting that it was “always unclear what, if anything, the protesters were demanding.”

9. America still likes baby-killing, but …

While 2023 saw some “extremely disappointing developments … for the cause of life,” 2024 was “more of a mixed bag,” says McIntire.

“Florida's 'kill them all' amendment was defeated along with similar amendments in Nebraska and South Dakota,” but unfortunately, “pro-baby-killing amendments in places like Arizona, Montana, and Missouri all passed.”

On top of that, “the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine that physicians and medical associations lack the legal right to challenge the FDA’s approval of the abortifacient mifepristone” and “preserved access” to this drug, even in states where abortion is restricted.

8. Real America: Forgotten, abused, and gaslit

2024 was a year of lying and gaslighting. McIntire gives two prime examples of this.

One: Every time an economic report was released this year, it was “not exactly good but maybe passable with the correct spin,” he explains. However, in a month’s time, “the revised numbers [were] published, showing the economy was not nearly as rosy as previous numbers indicated.”

Two: When Hurricane Helene hit Florida and ravaged its way up the coast through six states, FEMA and other federal emergency organizations “were — and are — seemingly nowhere to be found,” especially in the deep-red area of Western North Carolina.

However, when speculation that the absence of aid was politically motivated ignited, we were told repeatedly that the notion was “hogwash,” says McIntire. That is, until a report from the Daily Wire revealed that a FEMA official ordered workers to skip houses with Trump signs. Then the truth became apparent.

This cycle of lying and gaslighting “was on wash, rinse, and repeat all year with various figures within the Biden administration,” he says.

7. Trans ain’t going away

Although Caitlin Clark “[set] new heights for female athletics and [became] an icon,” the realm of women’s sports was still tainted by the fact that several biological men posing as women were permitted to compete in women’s athletic leagues this year.

One of those individuals is San Jose State volleyball player Blaire Fleming, who “played all season for the Spartans, prompting several of their opponents to forfeit their matches in protest,” says McIntire.

He is one of several examples.

6. 'I’m putting together a team'

Unlike his Cabinet picks from 2016, which included “John Backstabbing Kelly” and “James Tranny-loving Mattis,” this time around, an older and wiser Trump has tapped a number of excellent people to fill his Cabinet. From Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel to Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., among others, Trump’s second term is bound to look different.

5. So long, Joe

A month after special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s alleged improper retention of classified records concluded with no recommendation of criminal charges, as Biden was “a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” Biden dropped out of the presidential race following his disastrous debate against President-elect Donald Trump.

“Two days before that debate — June 25 — CNN runs a headline saying it's a right-wing conspiracy with fake videos that Biden's mentally unfit,” Deace recalls.

Then when Biden’s debate performance proved this “conspiracy” correct, then “the media that covered for him all the time suddenly does a pivot and now retcons themselves as the gatekeepers of democracy with great concern about the president's faculty.”

4. Illegal immigration and the murder of Laken Riley

“The most conservative estimates from our government's own data put the number of illegals who have come into this country during the Biden administration at over 7.2 million,” says McIntire. “The real number? Significantly higher, probably.”

Among those millions were many violent criminals, drug lords, and gang members — perhaps the most notable being Jose Ibarra, who murdered Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. Riley then became a kind of face for the movement of people who support mass deportations.

3. Lawfare

In 2024, “Donald Trump faced an extensive array of unfair legal challenges,” says McIntire.

Those include the New York hush-money case, during which he was convicted on 34 felony accounts for falsifying business records; the classified documents case, during which he was indicted on 37 counts; the election interference case, during which he faced numerous federal charges for actions related to the 2020 election; and the Fulton County, Georgia, case, in which Trump and others were charged under the RICO Act for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the state's 2020 election results.

On top of that, “he faced a bevy of civil lawsuits, including a significant fraud case by New York Attorney General Letitia James, where he was fined a substantial amount,” adds McIntire.

Further, “there were various efforts to disqualify him from the ballot — like in Colorado, which removed him from the ballot before they were smacked down by the Supreme Court — and there were other sundry efforts to label him as an insurrectionist.”

“These cases collectively — all of them ranging in validity from specious to malicious — added up for a year of lawfare, but there's a reason why he's called Teflon Don, as many of those suits fell apart,” adds McIntire.

2. They tried to kill him

“In a shocking but not surprising turn of events, at a Donald Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, an assassination attempt rocked the nation on July 13 of this year. Just minutes into his speech at the Butler Farm Show grounds, gunshots rang out, grazing Trump's ear and leading to immediate chaos,” McIntire recalls.

But “Trump in this iconic moment rose to his feet after being shot in the head and yelled to his supporters, ‘Fight, fight, fight!'" which resulted in one of the most iconic photographs of all time.

The attempt on Trump’s life, McIntire points out, was largely the result of the legacy media that perpetuated the narrative that Trump is Hilter.

1. Trump wins, again

Not only did he win the Electoral College, he also won the popular vote.

“That’s really all that needs to be said,” says McIntire.

To hear more on each event, as well as the crew's list of honorable mentions, watch the episode above.

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