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Joe Sanberg, the entrepreneur and anti-poverty advocate who spearheaded a recently defeated state ballot measure to raise California’s minimum wage, said he felt “frustrated and disappointed” by the loss, but vowed to continue advocating for struggling Californians. 

Proposition 32, which would have raised the state’s minimum wage from $16 to $18 per hour by 2026, narrowly failed at the ballot box 50.8% to 49.2%.

The measure was pushed by Sanberg, a progressive business leader, investor and co-founder of the socially-conscious financial firm Aspiration.

OPPONENTS OF FAILED CALIFORNIA MEASURE TO RAISE MINIMUM WAGE SAY VOTERS ‘MADE THE RIGHT CALL’

“I thought it was going to pass by a narrow margin,” he told Fox News Digital. “I’m frustrated and disappointed that we lost by a narrow margin. I also recognize that… people are very angry and frustrated about inflation, and they don’t know who and where to blame.”

“We should all be able to agree that if you work full-time, you should be able to afford life’s basic needs,” he added. “And there are millions of Californians for whom that is not the case.” 

Advocates of Prop 32 said roughly 2 million workers, including hotel and grocery store employees, stood to benefit from the measure, The Associated Press reported.

In recent years, California has raised its minimum wage in an effort to offset increased costs for housing, gas and other necessities. In April, fast-food restaurants in the state with 60 or more locations were mandated to start paying their employees at least $20 per hour.

Business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, California Restaurant Association and California Grocers Association, opposed Prop 32, saying high labor costs would hurt small businesses, as well as lead to an increase in prices for customers. 

“It’s understandable that policymakers, and even many Californians, might be allured and attracted to the concept of a few extra dollars in someone’s pocket, but unfortunately, they did not seem to understand the economic fallout of that kind of concept,” John Kabateck, the California director for the National Federation of Independent Business, told Fox News Digital. 

GAVIN NEWSOM: CRITICS SAID CALIFORNIA’S MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE WOULD BE A JOB-KILLER. THE OPPOSITE HAPPENED

Opponents also argued that raising the minimum wage too fast would result in job losses.

“When a worker loses a job, or the company goes out of business, the wage is ZERO DOLLARS PER HOUR,” business leaders wrote in their official ballot argument. 

Sanberg has spent years advocating for anti-poverty legislation and raising awareness about California’s tax credit that helps lift people out of financial uncertainty. Despite the loss at the ballot box, Sanberg said he remained optimistic.

He noted that in Imperial County, which sits east of San Diego on the California-Mexico border, President-elect Trump made significant gains with voters, despite Vice President Kamala Harris winning the overall vote count there. 

“It’s clear that working-class voters are in favor of raising the minimum wage. To me, that sends a message about how we can get both parties working toward making work pay better,” Sanberg said. 

Moving forward, Sanberg, who grew up with a single parent who struggled financially, said he plans to keep advocating for better pay for workers so they can at least afford the basics. 

“I’m open to every approach to get us to that outcome. But that’s the outcome that we ought to pursue. I just can’t imagine that we can be satisfied with anything less than that,” he said. “What is more American than the idea of working full-time and knowing that you can afford your house, your transportation, your food and your health care?”

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“That is not some aspiration. That’s a basic covenant that I think all Americans are taught to believe that we have with each other,” he added. “I think that covenant has been broken now for some time for tens of millions of working-class people around the country.”

President-elect Trump will take office just as Iran has the potential to become the world’s 10th nuclear-armed state, and it’s unclear if either side knows how it will approach the other. 

Judging by Trump’s last time in office, it would suggest he would come out the gate with a combative tone — having instituted a “maximum pressure” campaign to “bankrupt” the regime. His secretary of state pick, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has been an unyielding Iran hawk in the Senate. 

After the regime fired 200 missiles toward Tel Aviv last month, Rubio said: “Only threatening the survival of the regime through maximum pressure and direct and disproportionate measures has a chance to influence and alter their criminal activities.”

That could reinstate — and eliminate — any waivers for oil sanctions. It could mean threatening not to conduct business with countries that buy Iranian fuel products. 

Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., Trump’s pick for national security adviser, is of a similar mind. 

Last month, when the Biden administration urged Israel to keep its counterstrikes “proportional,” Waltz slammed President Biden for pressuring Israel “once again to do less than it should.” 

He suggested Israel strike oil facilities on Kharg Island and Iran’s nuclear plants in Natanz, a move the Biden team feared Iran would deem escalatory. 

Last month, Trump appeared to rule out the U.S. getting involved in any effort to take out Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini and his government. “We can’t get totally involved in all that. We can’t run ourselves, let’s face it,” he said.

“I would like to see Iran be very successful. The only thing is, they can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump has said he does not want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but has not laid out how he would stop it from doing so. 

“I’m not looking to be bad to Iran, we’re going to be friendly, I hope, with Iran, maybe, but maybe not. But we’re going to be friendly, I hope, we’re going to be friendly, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said at a New Jersey press conference in August. 

Last month, Trump suggested Israel strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

Following the Iranian missile attacks, he suggested Israel should “hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later.” 

On Thursday, Iran said it was activating “advanced” centrifuges after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors censured it for failing to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Without cooperation, the world is in the dark about how quickly Iran is advancing its technological capabilities to use its uranium fuel for a bomb. 

“We will significantly increase enrichment capacity,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, Iran’s atomic energy organization spokesman, said after the censure. 

IRAN HIDING MISSILE, DRONE PROGRAMS UNDER GUISE OF COMMERCIAL FRONT TO EVADE SANCTIONS

What’s standing between Iran and a fully formed nuclear weapon is both a political and a technological question. 

While the nation has enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon, the process of turning that into a warhead could take anywhere from six to 12 months, according to Nicole Grajewski, nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

“That’s when Iran would be most vulnerable to attack,” she said. “Iran could probably make a dirty bomb from its current stockpile.” 

Over the years, Iran’s nuclear progress has been set back by international sanctions, COVID-19, high-profile assassinations of its nuclear scientists and attacks and sabotage on its nuclear facilities led by Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad. 

And announcing they have a nuclear weapon could threaten Iran’s longtime goal of regional hegemony. 

“Iran is less isolated than it was four years ago, but it’s still pretty isolated. Announcing they are nuclear would trigger an arms race in the Middle East,” predicted Simone Leeden, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East. 

“Saudi Arabia and the UAE would decide they will pursue nuclear weapons the minute Iran declares it has its own. Another action they could and would take is deepening ties with Israel.” 

IRAN VASTLY INCREASED NUCLEAR FUEL STOCKPILE AHEAD OF TRUMP RETURN, UN AGENCY FINDS

Iran also understands that producing a nuclear bomb would likely evoke a military response from Israel and the U.S. under Trump. 

After years of trying to assassinate Trump, the Iranians don’t seem to have figured out whether to approach the U.S. relationship under Trump with a combative or diplomatic tone. Just last month, they told President Biden they would not make any efforts to kill the president-elect going forward. 

“I think that there’s been a lot of mixed signaling from the kind of Trump transition team is, you know, you see Brian Hook being appointed, who was behind this maximum pressure and sanctions,” said Grajewski. But then, on the other hand, Trump envoy Elon Musk reportedly met with Iranian officials to discuss how the two nations could dial back tensions. 

“I think that he is being opaque on purpose,” said Leeden. “I don’t think he wants to show his cards as a negotiator.” 

“In all likelihood, maximum pressure is going to be restored,” said Behnam Taleblu, Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “U.S. partners are asking now, to what end? Is it towards regime collapse? Is it towards a deal? What if the Iranians don’t negotiate in good faith?”

Former Israeli officials have suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be emboldened to strike Iranian nuclear facilities with the go-ahead from the Trump administration. But a lot of Iran’s centrifuge and enrichment facilities are deep underground, complicating a bombing campaign against them.

To get to them, Israel would need the U.S.’ Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP), or “bunkbuster bombs.” 

“It would require U.S. involvement — either the direct transfer of this, which is currently not really discussed — that would be pretty escalatory — or Israel getting the United States to also conduct this mission,” said Grajewski. 

The Trump team will also place a high priority on bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, solidifying the Sunni Muslim alliance against Iran. But the Saudis have insisted the U.S. and Israel must recognize a Palestinian state for such a deal to get done. 

“The incoming administration wants to quiet down this kinetic energy in the Middle East quickly, because we have bigger fish to fry as a country,” said Leeden.

The U.S. has long looked to pivot its military focus away from the Middle East and toward the Indo-Pacific. The outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas after Oct. 7 tore that focus back to the Arab world. 

In response to the Biden administration loosening key immigration restrictions, a spokesperson for New York City Mayor Eric Adams sounded off on the federal government, saying that New Yorkers and Americans are “fed up with our broken immigration system.”

The Biden Department of Homeland Security is launching an ICE Portal app in December that will allow migrants to skip their in-person check-ins at an ICE office and instead check in with immigration officials via an app on a phone or computer.

The app reportedly has severe glitching issues and does not track a migrant’s location if he or she is using an Android phone or laptop. Further, the app does not check migrants for past arrests or outstanding warrants and allows them to opt out of or contest government orders to undergo electronic tracking.

This comes after the Biden administration set the record for the highest number of illegal migrants entering the country in a single year in 2023, with 3.2 million entries. This surpassed the previous record of 2.7 million set the year before.

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Adams has said that New York, which has seen over 220,000 migrants arrive in the city since spring 2022, has been “devastated” by the surge of migrants.

Kayla Altus, a spokesperson for Adams, told Fox News Digital that “cities should not have to carry the cost and burden of a national problem.”

“For decades, Washington has endlessly talked about comprehensive reform, but delivered nothing of substance,” she said. “This election, the American people sent a resounding message: they are fed up with our broken immigration system.”  

1 IN 10 INMATES IN TEXAS’ HARRIS COUNTY JAIL WANTED BY ICE, RECORDS SHOW

She said the election, which saw a blowout victory for former President Trump and Republicans gaining unified control of Congress, gave the federal government a clear mandate to fix the immigration problem.

“Democrats and Republicans must come together to pass meaningful immigration reform for the first time in four decades,” she said. “That is what’s best for the American people, as well as the immigrants who come here, seeking the opportunity to build a better life and have a shot at the American Dream.”

Down in the border city of Laredo, Texas, Mayor Victor Trevino told Fox News Digital that he is working with state and Mexican authorities to prepare for the possibility of another migrant surge before Trump takes office. 

He said that although the city currently has “adequate” resources for everyday legal crossings, “no community is equipped enough to handle unnatural surges.” 

Trevino noted that the city is not equipped for a surge in migrant children as Laredo “does not have a pediatric intensive care unit.” 

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Fox News Digital that other sanctuary cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver are also struggling with the fiscal costs of the migrant surge. He said that in many instances, illegal migrants are even crowding out resources meant for citizens.

Camarota pointed to testimony he gave to the House Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs in September, in which he listed the fiscal costs to individual sanctuary cities: $12 billion in New York over the next three years on housing, food, health care and other services for recently arrived illegal immigrants, $361 million in Chicago and $36.4 million in Washington, D.C., in 2023, and $180 million in Denver in 2024.

“The real policy that would save the cities’ money is robust enforcement that both increased removals, made people go home, and encourage people to go home on their own,” he said. “If you’re increasing removals and you’ve increased just normal outmigration, you could really cut into these numbers and start to save some real money.”

Jessica Vaughan, who works as director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Fox News Digital that while the murder of nursing student Laken Riley by an illegal immigrant has garnered lots of attention, she said that tragic stories like that are not isolated but rather part of a larger patten. 

“Only ICE knows for sure how often someone who’s released by a sanctuary has been subsequently arrested for another crime,” she said. “There’s a human cost to the sanctuary policies and there is no reasonable law enforcement or public safety or even community trust justification for having this policy. It is political and it has to stop.” 

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., wants to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and plans to put forward a measure that would do just that.

“The ATF is a disaster,” Burlison, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News Digital on Thursday, adding that “for decades they’ve been a disaster agency” which has “been violating the… Second Amendment.”

The congressman suggested that states should be allowed to handle matters themselves, without federal interference.

“There’s very few ATF officials,” he said, accusing the agency of “co-opting or commandeering [local] law enforcement to enforce laws” which state lawmakers did not pass.

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The legislator plans to introduce a proposal previously put forward in 2023 by then-Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. 

Burlison, a freshman who took office last year, was one of the Republicans who joined Gaetz’s measure as a cosponsor.

GOP Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Mary Miller of Illinois, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Cory Mills of Florida, Mike Collins of Georgia, Barry Moore of Alabama, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Bob Good of Virginia also joined as cosponsors, according to congress.gov.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the ATF for comment on Friday.

“ATF provides enormous benefits to the American public through all of its efforts fighting violent crime every day,” ATF spokesperson Kristina Mastropasqua said in an emailed statement.

Burlison also thinks the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be abolished.

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“The EPA is making one-size-fits-all rules for the entire United States” and is “being more harmful than… helpful,” he said.

President-elect Donald Trump campaigned for president in 2016 in part by styling himself as a tough-on-crime contender who, if elected, would institute a national anti-crime agenda, crack down on immigration and bring “very strong, very swift,” law and order. 

His incendiary rhetoric and messaging on crime had set off alarm bells among many Democrats and criminal justice advocates ahead of his January 2017 inauguration. 

“I am the law and order candidate,” he told voters, before adding in the next breath, “I am also the candidate of compassion.”

But the second part of his remarks did little to assuage fears that under Trump, the U.S. would see an indiscriminate crackdown on crime. 

Jessica Jackson, a human rights attorney and CEO of criminal justice advocacy group REFORM Alliance, told Fox News Digital that she originally had some reservations of her own.

“First and foremost, I’m a Democrat,” Jackson said in an interview.  “So, to work with President Trump back in 2018 was considered a little bit unusual.” 

But Jackson did just that, lobbying for the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at reducing federal prison populations through curbing disproportionate sentences, promoting rehabilitation and allowing certain inmates the possibility of early release. 

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Jackson was part of a large group of police groups, religious leaders, prosecutors and celebrities who lobbied on behalf of the First Step Act. 

Their efforts were successful, and in December 2018 Trump signed the First Step Act into law.

The law has been roundly praised for both helping to reduce the federal prison population and, importantly, cutting down the rates of recidivism—the rate of formerly incarcerated persons who re-offend.

Jackson noted that the law has resulted in a reduction of recidivism “from about 49% to 9.7%.” A 2024 report from the Brennan Center for Justice estimates a slightly lower, but still striking, reduction rate of 46.2% to 9.7% of recidivism among former inmates aided by the First Step Act.

“I think the biggest lesson that I learned in the first administration was if you engage with the administration, there are opportunities to make progress on the issues that you care about,” Jackson said of working with Trump.

Now, she and other criminal justice advocates see more opportunities to work together in Trump’s second term. 

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One major opportunity that Jackson sees for Trump is passing the Safer Supervision Act, bipartisan legislation aimed at helping formerly incarcerated persons transition back into their communities. Proponents see the bill as a way to build on the success of the 2018 legislation.

Former inmates overwhelmingly struggle to readjust to life after prison, and the Safer Supervision Act seeks both to aid in employment opportunities for former inmates and to reduce the litany of burdensome parole and probation requirements.

It looks to address major hurdles faced by ex-cons, including a lack of structure, trouble finding a job and the many gaps in the federal parole and probation system, which is itself made up of understaffed and underfunded programs.

These hurdles have, at times, landed ex-cons behind bars for what appear to be largely innocuous reasons—ranging from missing a meeting with a parole officer to leaving a judicial district without permission or associating with people who have former convictions or are engaged in criminal behavior. At times, it is not communicated to the ex-prisoner what exactly the restrictions are. 

Jackson said that her team once worked with a former inmate who had traveled to and from work on public transit, eventually saving up enough money to make a down payment on a car.

Unfortunately, when he went to finance the car, she said, “It turns out that unbeknownst to him, and buried in the list of onerous conditions, was that he couldn’t open a bank account without talking to a supervision officer.”

“So, here’s a guy who thinks he’s doing something great—getting a car to go back and forth to work; taking his kids to school. And the next thing you know, he’s got a violation of his supervision and is being sent back in,” Jackson said. 

As a whole, former inmates are highly prone to recidivism: A 2023 Justice Department analysis of prisons in 24 states found that a whopping 82% of people released were rearrested at least once in the 10 years following their release. (A still-significant 43% were rearrested within a single year.)

Jackson hopes that Trump will make good in his second term on expanding these criminal justice reform initiatives—by passing the Safer Supervision Act and implementing other measures, such as second-chance hiring. 

Asked whether she had been in talks with any transition team staffers, Jackson laughed. “It’s funny, because everybody keeps asking me like, ‘Well, have you talked to anybody over there?’”

“We came together in a very unlikely coalition, and we were able to make real progress—we never actually stopped talking to them,” she said.

“And I think we’re excited about the opportunity to continue those conversations and to make progress where we can.”