Donald Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump wants to jail former and current members of Congress who investigated his incitement of the violent Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and he plans to pardon the rioters immediately upon taking office, he told NBC News Sunday.

On the network’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” Trump said leaders of the special congressional panel that probed the Capitol riot “lied” and “should go to jail.”

Trump singled out committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and a senior Black member of Congress, and former high-ranking House Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who co-chaired the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” Trump told NBC host Welker. 

Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump, walked back the president-elect’s comments Monday. Miller told CNN that Trump’s remarks about jailing Jan. 6 committee members were taken out of context and that he just wants his administration to “apply the law equally” to everybody.

President Joe Biden is reportedly mulling preemptive pardons for Cheney and former Democratic Congressman and incoming Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who also sat on the panel, along with others who could be targeted by the new Trump administration, according to media reports citing anonymous White House sources.

Trump takes office Jan. 20.

Cheney: ‘Here is the truth’

In a statement Sunday, Cheney described Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 as “the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history.”

“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” Cheney said. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten, and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.”

The Justice Department charged just over 1,560 people for taking part in the attack. Among those, 210 were found guilty at trial, and 979 pleaded guilty to charges that included assaulting police officers, trespassing and bringing deadly weapons to the Capitol, according to the most recent department data. That means it’s possible more than 1,000 individuals could be pardoned, depending on Trump’s decisions.

“As proven in Court, the weapons used and carried on Capitol grounds include firearms; OC spray; tasers; edged weapons, including a sword, axes, hatchets, and knives; and makeshift weapons, such as destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks, stolen riot shields, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping, and reinforced knuckle gloves,” according to the Justice Department.

Thompson said Monday the committee members “are simply not afraid of his most recent threats.”

“Our committee was fully authorized by the House, all rules were properly followed, and our work product stands on its own. In fact, in the two years since we have completed our work, no court or legal body has refuted it,” Thompson said in a statement provided Monday to States Newsroom.

“Donald Trump and his minions can make all the assertions they want – but no election, no conspiracy theory, no pardon, and no threat of vengeful prosecution can rewrite history or wipe away his responsibility for the deadly violence on that horrific day. We stood up to him before, and we will continue to do so,” said Thompson, who has served as the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security for the past two years.

Pardons on day one

Trump told Welker that he intends to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office. He said they violently attacked police officers because “they had no choice” and that their lives have been “destroyed” after facing charges for their actions.

During the wide-ranging interview Trump also blamed former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the attack and repeated debunked claims that “antifa” activists were part of a conspiracy to bait his supporters into attacking.

Video from Trump’s speech that day show him rallying his supporters to march to the Capitol and urge Congress to “do the right thing” by refusing to certify Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.

Trump also falsely told Welker that the Jan. 6 committee destroyed its investigative material and evidence.

In fact, hundreds of witness interview transcripts, videos and online exhibits are publicly available. The committee’s work culminated in a nearly 900-page final report that remains available online, and can be easily found with a simple internet search.

Kinzinger: ‘We did nothing wrong’

Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the only other Republican who sat on the Jan. 6 committee, said Sunday in a statement that Trump’s threat is “nothing more than the desperate howl of a man who knows history will regard him with shame.

“Let me be clear: we did nothing wrong. The January 6 Committee’s work was driven by facts, the Constitution, and the pursuit of accountability — principles that seem foreign to Trump,” Kinzinger, of Illinois, published on Substack.

Trump did not specifically name Kinzinger during his interview.

The White House did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on Biden’s reported consideration of preemptive pardons.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on Aug. 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday he plans to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, another controversial candidate who could face a challenging confirmation process in the U.S. Senate given his non-scientific beliefs about public health, including his anti-vaccine stance.

“I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS),” Trump posted on social media. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health.

“The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.”

HHS receives about $116.8 billion in discretionary federal funds and about $1.7 trillion in mandatory spending each year and houses several big-name public health agencies, including the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response or ASPR, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Kennedy ran in this year’s presidential election as an independent candidate, often repeating inaccurate information about vaccines and spreading other conspiracy theories about public health.

He has no background in science, research, or medicine. He graduated from Harvard University before going on to receive a law degree from the University of Virginia Law School.

He pleaded guilty to felony heroin possession in Rapid City, S.D., in February 1984, before receiving two years of probation, which ended a year early. He volunteered with the Natural Resources Defense Council as part of that probation.

Kennedy spent much of his career as an environmental lawyer and published several books.

After ending his own presidential bid this year, Kennedy endorsed Trump and campaigned frequently for him.

Criticism of the nomination began quickly after news broke Thursday, though far-right Republicans are expected to celebrate the nomination.

Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog nonprofit organization Public Citizen, released a written statement saying, “Kennedy is a science-denying, morally-bankrupt conspiracy theorist who will endanger people’s lives if placed in a position of authority over health. The U.S. Senate should unanimously reject this nomination.”

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, released a written statement that he’s interested in learning more about Kennedy during the confirmation process.

“RFK Jr. has championed issues like healthy foods and the need for greater transparency in our public health infrastructure,” Cassidy wrote. “I look forward to learning more about his other policy positions and how they will support a conservative, pro-American agenda.” 

Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, a senior member of the HELP panel that will hold the confirmation hearing, wrote in a statement that Kennedy “could not be more dangerous — this is cause for deep concern for every American.”

“There is no telling how far a fringe conspiracy theorist like RFK Jr. could set back America in terms of public health, reproductive rights, research and innovation, and so much else,” Murray wrote. “The consequences here are not theoretical or superficial — health care access, coverage, research, and public health are life or death issues for people — and the COVID pandemic was an all too recent, all too painful reminder.”

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul congratulated Kennedy on social media, writing “Congratulations to @RobertKennedyJr on his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services. Finally, someone to detox the place after the Fauci era. Get ready for health care freedom and MAHA!”

Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, a former member of Congress who previously criticized Kennedy’s anti-vaccine stance as a way to bring back polio and measles, cheered his nomination in a lengthy social media post.

“I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health.”

Polis added another post about an hour later, writing that science “must remain THE cornerstone of our nation’s health policy and the science-backed decision to get vaccinated improves public health and safety.”

“But if as a country we follow the science we would also be far more concerned about the impact of pesticides on public health, ag policy on nutrition, and the lack of access to prescription drugs due to drug high prices,” Polis added. “This is why I am for a major shake-up in institutions like the FDA that have been barriers to lowering drug costs and promoting healthy food choices. Lest there by any doubt, I am vaccinated as is my family. I will hold any HHS Secretary to the same high standard of protecting and improving public health.”

Voters sign in at a polling place in Takoma Park, Md., on Election Day. Voter enthusiasm was high across the country on Tuesday. (Barbara Barrett/Stateline)

America’s voting system was under siege for four years.

Former President Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud in the 2020 election exposed the people who operate our elections to threats and harassment in the run-up to this one. They fortified their offices against potential violence, adjusted to last-minute, politically driven changes in election laws, and fought a relentless stream of lies and disinformation. Going into Election Day, officials and pro-democracy advocates braced for the worst.

What a difference a day — and a result — makes.

Aside from a few hiccups, the U.S. voting process went smoothly this year. The winner of the presidential election was declared early the next morning, few people claimed widespread voter fraud, and the losing candidate conceded defeat.

It was a triumph for democracy, said David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan organization that advises local election officials nationwide.

But he wondered what would have happened had Trump, now president-elect, lost again.

“It’s somewhat telling that we’ve seen fewer fraud claims in the aftermath of an election which former president and future President Trump won,” he said. “But if we can get to the point now where President Trump and his supporters believe in the integrity of our elections, believe in the reality of our integrity of the elections, I will take it.”

Those who study the election process say they have questions: With Trump heading back to the White House, will faith in American democracy rebound? Will Republican lawmakers continue to use the myth of widespread voter fraud to implement further restrictions on mail-in and early voting? And will the threats that have hounded state and local election officials continue?

There’s a lot of uncertainty ahead for U.S. elections, said Kathy Boockvar, the former Democratic secretary of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But what is certain is that by fueling distrust in elections, Trump and his allies have done permanent damage in this country, she said.

“Will there be a bump, maybe, because some of these folks now saw their candidate that they wanted to win? Sure,” she told Stateline. “There may be a bump in trust, but it’s not going to erase years and years of intentional dividing American against American, and intentional fueling of distrust of institutions and media.”

What happened to the election fraud?

In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Trump said his win was “a massive victory for democracy.” He made no mention of widespread voter fraud and gave no indication that there were any attempts to steal the election.

He had struck a different tone just hours before.

Earlier in the day, Trump falsely asserted in a Truth Social post that there was a heavy law enforcement presence in Philadelphia and Detroit. Officials in both cities debunked that claim. He also claimed without evidence that there was “massive CHEATING” in Philadelphia, which local officials, including Republicans, denied.

Trump would go on to win the critical swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania in his landslide victory.

Election officials faced some falsehoods and disruptions Tuesday. Michigan officials called out what they said was an inauthentic video, allegedly showing boxes of ballots being carried into Detroit’s election office late Tuesday evening. The FBI warned of fabricated videos circulating online and of noncredible bomb threats at polling places in several states, including Michigan, originating out of Russia.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, told reporters at a news conference Wednesday morning those incidents of disinformation felt like things she saw in 2020, as Trump and his allies began to contest his loss.

“I worry and imagine that there was much more planned to drop, potentially, to create confusion and chaos in the hours following the election in an effort to potentially lay seeds to challenge results in the future,” she said. “Of course, we didn’t see that play out.”

U.S. national security officials praised how elections were conducted nationwide this year, as they had in 2020. Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the election was peaceful and secure, and that malicious activity had no significant impact on the integrity of the process.

“Our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections for the American people,” she said in a press release Wednesday.

Election officials did a heroic job this year, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that works with state and local election officials to keep voting systems secure. Officials’ work was built on years of beefing up election procedures, audits and security, and coordinating with nonprofit advisers. Elections are resilient, Smith said.

But she added: “What will it take to get belief in the trustworthiness of elections to a point where it’s true for all of us, all the time? And maybe that is a lofty goal, but it’s worth having.”

There are some challenges that need to be addressed, including long lines on college campuses, how to decrease the number of absentee ballots rejected over incorrect signatures, and how to address the continued threats from foreign bad actors such as Russia.

But the crisis of the past four years did force state and local election officials to be more prepared for all threats, said Boockvar, who is president of Athena Strategies and a member of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections. The committee’s bipartisan group of election and law enforcement officials developed pocket-size guides to election laws for police officers to carry.

“The good news is we have much more cross-sector support,” she said.

Future legislation

After Trump cast his ballot on Election Day in Florida, he went to his campaign headquarters in Palm Beach and laid out what he wished the voting process looked like.

“They should do paper ballots, same-day voting, voter ID and be done,” he said. “One day, same day.”

The makeup of Congress is still unknown as local election offices continue to count ballots. But Republicans have shown a willingness to tackle federal voting legislation, as they did with their failed attempt to insert into a larger funding bill a ban on voting by noncitizens (which already is illegal).

But some of Trump’s ideas, especially moving the country to a system in which voters can only cast a ballot on Election Day, is unlikely, said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. But other suggestions are possible, he added.

There is broad, bipartisan support among voters for mail-in and early voting, along with other protections such as voter list maintenance and audits, Olson said. For example, Georgia is a Republican-run state with robust early and mail-in voting and high voter turnout, with paper ballots, post-election audits and voter ID requirements.

Connecticut voters just approved a constitutional amendment that allows for no-excuse absentee voting. Nevada voters approved a ballot measure that now requires an ID to vote by mail and in person. Voters in eight states, including North Carolina and Wisconsin, also approved ballot measures to make noncitizen voting illegal under state law.

Republican state lawmakers still seem keen to continue finding new ways to tighten procedures in the name of “election integrity.”

This election ran smoothly because of the legislation and proactive lawsuits from the conservative movement, argued Arizona state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, a Republican who was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona for his role in challenging the 2020 election.

“Look, there were a lot of vulnerabilities still, but it was a more secure election than the ones we’ve had in the past,” he said in an interview.

Kolodin introduced legislation this year to keep vote centers open longer and give voters more notice to fix signature or date errors on their absentee ballots, among other provisions. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed it in February.

He expects Trump to keep election integrity in the public consciousness and continue to pressure conservatives to work on it. For his part, Kolodin will push to scrap Arizona’s larger vote centers and opt for precinct-level polling places for better efficiency.

Before the election, Michigan state Rep. Luke Meerman, a Republican, told Stateline that he would love to see measures that require some sort of ID to vote in person and by mail.

“Something to prove that whoever filled that ballot out was the person that was supposed to be filling it out probably would be at the top of my list,” he said.

Despite Trump’s win, the false narratives around the supposed insecurity of U.S. elections — in which noncitizens and dead people are voting in droves — will likely continue, said the Cato Institute’s Olson; it is baked into the movement that brought the former president back into power.

“Given that so much of this was about Trump’s desire for personal vindication, maybe it’s over, and maybe we won’t face the same kind of systematic attempt to delegitimize the honesty of elections,” Olson said. “But that’s the optimistic view.”

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Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

A man participates in exit polling after voting in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary at Dreher High School on Feb. 24, 2024, in Columbia, South Carolina. (Sean Rayford | Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A pro-democracy organization warned Monday that disinformation and violent rhetoric could make the weeks that follow Election Day especially fraught, pushing the country past the upheaval that arose four years ago during the last presidential transition.

The comments from three members of the Defend Democracy Project came just days before voting ends on Nov. 5, though with several races extremely close, the country may not know for days who won the presidential contest as well as control of Congress.

That could leave considerable space for speculation as state election workers count mail-in ballots and potentially undertake full recounts, similar to four years ago.

“I think the biggest vulnerability will continue to be the mis- and disinformation that will happen in the aftermath of the election,” said Olivia Troye, who previously worked for Vice President Mike Pence as a special adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism.

Troye raised concerns that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump may make false claims about election fraud and encourage violence similar to what took place on Jan. 6, 2021, should he lose the Electoral College again.

Troye referenced an election bulletin from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security she said cautioned that “candidates, elected officials, election workers, members of the media, judges involved in these cases” could all become targets of post-election violence.

“And they’re also concerned about the visible attacks and violence on polling places or ballot drop boxes,” Troye said, referencing the burning of ballots inside drop boxes in Oregon and Washington states early Monday morning.

Michael Podhorzer, chair of the Defend Democracy Project, said during the virtual briefing for reporters that one of the reasons many state officials didn’t go along with requests to “find votes” for Trump in the days following the 2020 election was because President Joe Biden had “two states to spare.”

“And that created a prisoner’s dilemma for every Republican election official who might have done the wrong thing,” Podhorzer said. “So if you take the call to (Georgia Secretary of State) Brad Raffensperger, he understood that even if he could find those votes that Trump wanted, unless two Democratic secretaries of state overturned their results, Donald Trump was not going back to the White House.

“And what that meant was that there wasn’t any single actor, in the way there was in 2000 in Florida, who could actually change the results of the election.”

That could be different this time, should Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris win by a small margin, potentially just one state’s Electoral College votes, he said.

Accepting the results

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released a survey Monday showing 86% of registered voters believe whoever loses the presidential election should accept the results, though just 33% expect Trump will concede if he fails to secure the votes needed to win the Electoral College.

About 77% of those surveyed expected Harris to accept the results should she lose the presidential race.

Anxiety about post-election violence was rather high among the registered voters surveyed, with 76% saying they are extremely or somewhat concerned about violent attempts to overturn the election results.

Eighty-two percent said they were at least somewhat concerned about “increased political violence directed at political figures or election officials.”

Voters are also worried about foreign interference in the elections, with 78% of the registered voters surveyed saying they are extremely or somewhat concerned about it “influencing what Americans think about political candidates.”

The co-chairs of Issue One’s National Council on Election Integrity — former U.S. Reps. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., Donna Edwards, D-Md., Tim Roemer, D-Ind., and Zach Wamp, R-Tenn. — released a written statement Monday addressing a fake video produced by Russian actors about ballots in Pennsylvania. The statement also criticized a Maryland Republican congressman who said North Carolina should just give its Electoral College votes to Trump.

“Foreign adversaries are seeking to influence U.S. elections by sowing division and spreading false information to undermine confidence in our system of self-government,” the co-chairs wrote. “In addition, people who want to win at all costs continue to spread false claims about election integrity and may create chaos, delay results, and challenge the outcome of our fair electoral process.”

The four wrote the suggestions from Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chairman of the far-right U.S. House Freedom Caucus, that North Carolina simply grant its 15 Electoral College votes to Trump “before votes are counted are dangerous and against the rule of law.”

“By rejecting the so-called independent state legislature theory in Moore v. Harper, the Supreme Court affirmed that state legislatures do not have the power to replace the popular will with a slate of electors,” they wrote.

Issue One describes itself as a “crosspartisan” organization that works to “unite Republicans, Democrats, and independents in the movement to fix our broken political system and build an inclusive democracy that works for everyone.”

GOP blowback on Puerto Rico insults at Trump rally

Democrats and Republicans united somewhat Monday to express anger about comments a comedian made about Puerto Rico during a Trump rally on Sunday at Madison Square Garden.

Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke in the hours leading up to Trump’s comments, called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.”

Hinchcliffe later said Latinos “love making babies” and made additional lewd comments.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Diaz Barragán, D-Calif., released a statement Monday calling the comments shameful and dangerous.

“This type of language emboldens prejudice, encourages violence, and undermines the values of unity and respect that our country is built on,” Barragán wrote. “It’s deeply troubling to see Republican leaders celebrate this rhetoric instead of promoting unity and truth.”

Vice President Harris told reporters traveling with her that the comedian’s comments were part of the reason voters are “exhausted” and “ready to turn the page” on Trump.

“It is absolutely something that is intended to, and is fanning the fuel of trying to divide our country,” Harris said.

Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott posted on social media that the comedian’s comments about Puerto Rico were “not funny and it’s not true.”

“Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans! I’ve been to the island many times. It’s a beautiful place. Everyone should visit!” Scott wrote. “I will always do whatever I can to help any Puerto Rican in Florida or on the island.”

Florida Republican Rep. Carlos A. Giménez posted on social media that the comedian’s comments were “completely classless & in poor taste.”

“Puerto Rico is the crown jewel of the Caribbean & home to many of the most patriotic Americans I know,” Giménez wrote. “@TonyHinchcliffe clearly isn’t funny & definitely doesn’t reflect my values or those of the Republican Party.”

Puerto Rico’s delegate to the U.S. House, Jenniffer González-Colón, a Republican, called the comedian’s remarks “despicable, misguided, and revolting.”

“What he said is not funny; just as his comments were rejected by the audience, they should be rejected by all!” González-Colón wrote. “There can be no room for such vile and racist expressions. They do not represent the values of the GOP.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

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The Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, speaks at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

NEW YORK  — Former President Donald Trump promised “America’s new golden age” of closed borders and world peace as he rallied a capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden in his home city in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential contest against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump headlined the over six-hour rally that featured nearly 30 speakers, some of whom insulted Latinos and attacked Democratic nominee Harris over her race, and he vowed “to make America great again, and it’s going to happen fast.”

“It is called America first, and it is going to happen as no one has ever seen before,” Trump said, adding “We will not be overrun, we will not be conquered. We will be a free and proud nation once again. Everyone will prosper.”

But the event also generated intense criticism from Democrats for remarks made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke during the afternoon hours ahead of Trump and called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.”

The joke could prove politically problematic for Republicans, who have been courting the Latino vote, and particularly in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans live.

The United States is home to 5.6 million Puerto Ricans, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data, and about 8% of them live in Pennsylvania.

Hinchcliffe, who hosts a podcast called “Kill Tony,” also said Latinos “love making babies” and made a lewd joke about them.

Florida Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, whose state is also home to hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, on X wrote, “It’s not funny and it’s not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!”

Democrats brought in U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is Puerto Rican, and the vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz, to blast the joke. “When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico floating garbage … that’s what they think about anyone who makes less money than them,” she said.

Harris on Sunday in Philadelphia laid out a new policy proposal focused on Puerto Rico.

The former president’s 80-minute speech mostly featured his standard campaign promises and stories, though he added a proposal to his list of tax breaks — a benefit for those caring for sick or aging relatives in their homes. Harris also introduced a policy for at-home care for seniors earlier in October.

Trump repeated his popular pledges to “get transgender insanity the hell out of our schools,” “stop the invasion” at the border and restore peace to Ukraine and the Middle East, which he claims would have never become war-torn had he been in office.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told the crowd his time campaigning around the country for Trump has revealed “something very powerful out there happening among the base.”

“I’m telling you, there’s an energy out there that we have not seen before,” Johnson said.

NYC stop a detour

Trump held the rally nine days before polls close on Nov. 5. Nearly 42 million Americans have already voted early, in person or by mail, in more than two dozen states, according to the University of Florida Election Lab’s early voting tracker.

Trump’s New York stop detoured from the seven battleground states in this election’s spotlight — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. His campaign also announced on Sunday two upcoming stops in New Mexico and Virginia during the contest’s final week.

Still, both candidates once again hit Pennsylvania over the weekend, with Trump delivering remarks Saturday at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, and Harris spending Sunday rallying a crowd in Philadelphia.

Harris spoke to the press in Philadelphia, a city she described as “a very important part of our path to victory.”

“I’m feeling very optimistic about the enthusiasm that is here and the commitment that folks of every background have to vote and to really invest in the future of our country,” Harris told reporters.

The vice president criticized Trump for using “dark and divisive language,” including his comments this week that America is the “garbage can of the world.”

“I think people are ready to turn the page,” she said.

Tucker Carlson goes after Harris

Numerous speakers attacked Harris’ record — a standard feature of political rallies — but some comments invoked her race. Trump’s childhood best friend, David Rem, clutched a crucifix and told the crowd Harris is the “antichrist.”

Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson described Harris as a “Samoan Malaysian low IQ former California prosecutor” as he was spinning a scenario in which the Democrats reflect on their candidate post-election.

“Donald Trump has made it possible for the rest of us to tell the truth about the world around us,” Carlson said earlier in his speech.

Harris’ mother was Indian, and her father is Jamaican. Trump has previously questioned her race during his interview with the National Association of Black Journalists.

Carlson, who was fired by Fox News in April 2023, accused Democrats of telling “lies,” and said in a mocking voice, “Jan. 6 was an insurrection, they were unarmed, but it was very insurrection-y.”

The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 by thousands of Trump supporters came after months of the former president refusing to concede the 2020 presidential election, which President Joe Biden won.

Twenty-eight speakers preceded Trump, beginning at just after 2 p.m. and holding court until the former president took the stage at 7:13 p.m. Trump’s wife, Melania, in a rare campaign rally appearance, introduced him and spoke briefly.

The lineup included the founder of Death Row Records, TV personality Dr. Phil and pro wrestling’s Hulk Hogan and Dana White — some of whom spoke at July’s four-day Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose super PAC has flooded more than $75 million into the campaign, was among the cast of speakers.

Musk told the crowd to vote early and that he wants to see a “massive crushing victory.”

“Make the margin of victory so big that you know what can’t happen,” he said, referring to debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Focus on NYC

The day was heavy on the mystique of New York and Trump’s ties to it. New York City is not only where Trump grew up and followed his father’s path into real estate, but now also where he was convicted in May in a Manhattan court on 34 state felony counts for a hush money scheme involving a porn star.

A vendor hawking campaign gear to supporters waiting to enter Madison Square Garden Sunday morning advertised a hat that read “I’m voting for the convicted felon.”

Several speakers credited Trump with changing the New York City skyline. The 58-story Trump Tower stands on 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan, among his other real estate holdings on the island.

“New York City made Donald Trump, but Donald Trump also made New York City,” said Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

Howard Lutnick, chair and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chair of the Trump campaign’s “transition team,” told the story of losing just over 650 of his employees in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001 masterminded by known terrorist Osama bin Laden.

“We must elect Donald J. Trump president because we must crush jihad,” Lutnick said.

Lutnick bantered with Musk on stage, estimating the pair could possibly cut $2 trillion in federal spending under a second Trump administration. Trump has chosen the duo to lead a commission on government efficiency if elected.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who took a leading role in spreading Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, received a standing ovation from the full arena.

He accused Biden and Harris of spreading “socialism, fascism and communism.”

Giuliani, a major player in Trump’s false claim that he won the 2020 election, appeared at the rally just days after a federal judge in New York ordered him to surrender his apartment and valuables to election workers in Georgia whom he was found guilty of defaming.

Giuliani, along with a handful of other speakers, also implied that Democrats are responsible for the two assassination attempts on Trump.

“I’m not gonna do conspiracy,” Giuliani said, “but it’s funny that they tried to do everything else, and now they’re trying to kill him.”

The accusation was a theme throughout the daylong event. Speaker after speaker implied or outright blamed Democrats for the two attempts on Trump’s life, never mentioning the perpetrators. The gunman in the first attempt was killed by law enforcement, and the second, who never fired at Trump, has been charged in Florida; neither has been found to have ties to Democrats.

Trump focused some of his comments on New York City, referencing his childhood and adding that he felt sympathy for the city’s indicted Mayor Eric Adams.

The rally ended, not with Trump’s signature closer “YMCA” by the Village People, but with a live rendition of “New York, New York” by Christopher Macchio.

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Lisa Posthumus Lyons, the Republican clerk for Kent County, Mich., has to remind voters that elections are run by people and mistakes can occur; it doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy. In the final days of the election, local election officials are busy dispelling rumors and misinformation. (Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline)

In the final days of the presidential election, lies about noncitizens voting, the vulnerability of mail-in ballots and the security of voting machines are spreading widely over social media.

Fanned by former President Donald Trump and notable allies such as tech tycoon Elon Musk, election disinformation is warping voters’ faith in the integrity of the democratic process, polls show, and setting the stage once again for potential public unrest if the Republican nominee fails to win the presidency. At the same time, federal officials are investigating ongoing Russian interference through social media and shadow disinformation campaigns.

The “firehose” of disinformation is working as intended, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that advocates for responsible use of technology in elections.

“This issue is designed to sow general distrust,” she said. “Your best trusted source is not your friend’s cousin’s uncle that you saw on Twitter. It’s your local election official. Don’t repeat it. Check it instead.”

With early voting ongoing, local officials such as Travis Doss in Augusta, Georgia, say they are fighting a losing battle against fast-moving social media rumors.

Doss, the executive director of the Richmond County Board of Elections, said many voters in his county do not believe absentee ballots are counted properly. Many think election officials are choosing which ballots to count based on the neighborhood from where they’re sent, or that voting machines are easily hacked.

In recent weeks, Doss himself heard a rumor that a local preacher told his entire congregation to register to vote again because the preacher had heard — falsely — that everyone had been removed from the voter registration rolls.

“Somebody hears something and then they tell people, and it’s the worst game of telephone tag there ever is,” Doss said. “It’s so hard to correct all the misinformation because there’s so many things out there that we don’t even know about.”

As early voting began in mid-October in Georgia, Doss had to remind some voters that poll workers would observe the polling place and election equipment all day, ensuring no one tampered with the process. He noted that the tabulation machines are not connected to the internet, nor are they being hacked. He also had to emphasize that the ballot drop boxes were sealed and secure.

The amount of disinformation spreading throughout the country is immense.

College students in Wisconsin have been targeted with text messages meant to intimidate them into not voting, even when they’re eligible. The Michigan State Police had to correct rumors that people were unlawfully tampering with voting machines in one precinct, when it was actually two clerk’s office employees testing the ballot tabulating devices. Scammers posing as election officials have been calling Michigan voters claiming they must provide their credit card and Social Security numbers to vote early.

“In order to protect our democracy, we must address the mis- and disinformation that is spreading like wildfire,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP.

Ongoing lies

Musk, the owner of the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), has gorged on a smorgasbord of common election conspiracy theories. At a recent Trump rally in Pennsylvania, he falsely insinuated that voting machines designed by Dominion Voting Systems could steal this election from Trump. Dominion successfully sued Fox News and others for promoting that lie after the 2020 election.

Last month, Musk posted that Democrats are expediting citizenship for immigrants living in the country illegally so the party could get a permanent electoral advantage. Journalists have thoroughly debunked his claim. Trying to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment to motivate voters to the polls, Trump and his allies have for months repeated the lie that noncitizens are voting in droves.

Musk shared a bogus claim about widespread voter fraud in a Wisconsin county in the 2020 election. The targeted jurisdiction, Henrico County, posted a thread on X correcting Musk’s assertions with data. Musk also amplified a claim that Michigan’s voter rolls were packed with inactive voters and ripe for fraud. Top state officials had to rebut those false claims too.

“The most dangerous and effective thing is that retweet button,” said Jay Young, senior director of voting and democracy at Common Cause, a national voting rights group that has a social media monitoring program tracking online disinformation.

Beyond Musk’s posts, disinformation has thrived on X.

The American Sunlight Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that fights misleading information and is run by the former head of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security disinformation team, released a report this month on the scope of the problem. The report found that nearly 1,200 likely automated accounts on X are spreading Russian propaganda and pro-Trump disinformation about the presidential election.

American spy agencies believe the Kremlin is actively pushing election disinformation this year.

And nearly half the Republican candidates running for top state offices or Congress have questioned the integrity of this year’s election, primarily through social media, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. Many of the candidates’ posts include falsehoods.

Sustained lies about election integrity have consequences: State and local election officials have been bombarded by threats and harassment this year, and confidence in elections has plummeted.

According to an October NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, more than 3 in 4 Americans remain confident or very confident that state and local agencies will carry out a fair and accurate election.

Still, 58% of Americans say they are concerned or very concerned that voter fraud will occur this year. Among Republicans polled, 86% are concerned about fraud, while 55% of independents and 33% of Democrats have a similar fear.

How officials respond

Over the past four years of going to town hall meetings and other community events throughout Oconto County, Wisconsin, on the western shore of Green Bay, County Clerk Kim Pytleski has repeatedly heard from voters who say that because their preferred candidate did not win in 2020, there must be something wrong with the electoral process.

Presented with conspiracy theories, Pytleski, a Republican, doesn’t just tell voters they’re wrong; she asks where the voter got that information, and then she walks them through the specific concern with step-by-step details about the voting process.

One concern that often comes up: the volume of absentee ballot applications voters receive in the mail. Many residents think the applications are actual ballots that can be marked and returned.

Voters will claim if there were that many ballots being sent, there must be election fraud, she said. Pytleski has had to explain that those were applications, and they were coming from political parties and other groups. Voters can only receive one ballot from her office, she will tell them.

“And when we’ve explained that, for the most part, people are like, ‘OK, that makes sense. I get that,’” she said during an interview in August.

Touching her right hand to her heart and raising her hand to the sky, Pytleski said she’s a dedicated member of the Republican Party, like most of the county’s voters. But it has been challenging for her to go to those meetings and feel voters’ suspicion. She’s even been called a liar to her face.

“I’m walking into a room that feels not so super-friendly, and I have to remind them that this is the girl that rode the bus route with your children, this is the girl who grew up in that house down the road,” she said. “My name means something to me, so I would never do anything to jeopardize that or the actual process.”

Misinformation can arise after local election offices err in some way, whether it was a misprint on a ballot, an electrical power outage at a polling place or something else.

Lisa Posthumus Lyons, the Republican clerk for Kent County, Michigan, regularly reminds voters that elections are run by humans and humans make mistakes, but that there are checks and balances in place to ensure elections remain secure and transparent, she said.

On her desk, a decorative sign reminds her to “Serve the Lord with Gladness.” She said she hopes voters will share her optimism and faith in the system.

“Their rights are going to be protected, their votes are going to be counted, the election is going to be accurate and fair, and we’re going to have a good day,” she said. “Anything that arises, we’ll be ready for it. It’s as simple as that.”

Beyond listening to local election officials, voters can rely on election protection hotlines run by experts and pro-democracy advocates, said Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a national legal advocacy group.

The committee is one of many voting rights groups in a coalition that is leading the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline this election season. The groups run similar hotlines for people who speak Spanish, Arabic and around 10 Asian languages.

With all the hotlines, Hewitt said, voters can call with questions or concerns about their access or about election procedures.

“This is something that we attend to not just when there’s a problem, but it’s something that we try to get ahead of,” he said. “We’re there to help guide them every step of the way.”

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Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

Voters at the Wilmar Neighborhood Center on Madison's East side cast their ballots. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Four years ago, in late September of 2020, the concerns that then-President Donald Trump would not accept the results of the election if he lost began to become more concrete. The COVID-19 pandemic had caused a massive boost in the use of absentee voting and Trump had warned his supporters not to use the voting method. 

Then, in the days after the election when the result remained in doubt, conspiracy theories began to spread around the country. In Wisconsin, Trump supporters complained of a “ballot dump” in Milwaukee that flipped the result for Joe Biden (actually the surge in absentee ballots had just made it slower for election workers at the city’s central count location to tally the votes). 

“There’s been a travesty at the ballot box,” one voter told the Wisconsin Examiner on Nov. 6, a day before Biden was declared the winner. “We’re seeing unbelievable numbers of ballot harvesting, voter fraud, election fraud and nothing’s being done to correct the situation in cities like Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta.”

That same weekend, a Wisconsin attorney and the Trump campaign began to shape a plan. That plan — created as Trump’s final legal avenues to overturn the election results ran out — would soon become the fake elector scheme, in which Republicans in Wisconsin and six other states where Biden had won cast false slates of electors for Trump. The plot underpinned the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, urged on by Trump, as Congress attempted to certify that Biden had in fact won the election. Trump’s supporters used the fake elector scheme to argue that the certification should be stopped so that the fraudulent electoral votes could be counted.

In the months after the election, multiple reviews, audits and investigations were launched, searching for the voter fraud that Trump and his supporters baselessly claimed had stolen the election from him. By June, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos had tasked state Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) and former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman with running their own investigations into the election. Gableman and Brandtjen ultimately joined calls for the election results to be decertified and drew massive amounts of criticism. 

Gableman’s review ran for more than a year, racking up legal fees and keeping public records hidden, without finding any evidence of fraud. Brandtjen, who was at the time the chair of the Assembly’s elections committee, repeatedly invited conspiracy theorists to testify, giving a platform to  debunked claims of wrongdoing. 

After Gableman’s review ended, state Rep. Tim Ramthun ran a Republican primary campaign for governor entirely on a platform of election conspiracy theorism. Election deniers in Wisconsin state government  along with local activists Peter Bernegger of New London (previously convicted of fraud) and Harry Wait, of Union Grove (charged with felonies after illegally requesting absentee ballots), as well as  former Menomonee Falls Village President Jefferson Davis became the core of the state Republican Party’s election denying wing — with allies in the Legislature and a sizable number of voters on their side. 

But despite the hold that election conspiracy theories have on a subset of Wisconsin Republicans, elections experts say the state is prepared for 2024 and unlikely to see a repeat of the 2020 effort to overturn results. 

“It’ll be a case of crying wolf again,” Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, says. “All of this was done in 2020 to no effect, with no evidence.”

Laws and rules have been changed or clarified; election officials and others have spent countless hours repeatedly sharing factual information about how the voting system works; the two attorneys central to planning the false elector scheme have been charged by the state Department of Justice with felonies, Wisconsin’s fake electors have agreed as part of a settlement deal that they tried to falsify the results of the election and that they will not serve as Trump electors in the future, and Trump no longer has the element of surprise. 

Mandell says he thinks the small fringe of election deniers in Wisconsin will make baseless accusations while Heck says he’s looking out for efforts to discourage people from voting and staying vigilant against disruptive observers at polling places and central count locations where absentee ballots are tallied. But generally, the two say they’re confident clerks, election officials and legal observers are prepared. 

“There’s no doubt that there continue to be things thrown at the wall, but I think we’re in a much better place than we were four years ago or even before that,” Jeff Mandell, general counsel at the voting rights-focused nonprofit firm Law Forward, says. “When I think about threats to this election, there are, of course, things, both in Wisconsin and around the country, that we continue to hear. And we are thinking through and preparing for those things, but I regard those as really low likelihood problems. And so while we’re doing everything we can to be ready, in case one of them does rear its head in Wisconsin, I’m pretty skeptical that one will.” 

Leading up to the election, Republican politicians continue to make false claims about the system. Last week, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and a number of county sheriffs held a press conference to attack the use of absentee ballot drop boxes and warn of attempts by non-citizens to vote. Republicans in Congress have tied the passage of a federal spending bill to the SAVE Act, which outlaws voting by noncitizens in federal elections, something that is already a felony carrying  penalties of imprisonment and deportation and which data shows happens incredibly rarely. 

“This just doesn’t happen,” Mandell says. “It is already illegal under state law. It is already illegal under federal law. The consequences are tremendous. And so I would actually say that I think some of this carping about this fictitious idea of non-citizen voting is just evidence of how much election denialism has been marginalized because there’s almost nothing left for them to talk about.”

Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned a previous decision, once again allowing the use of drop boxes for returning absentee ballots. A number of election clerks in Republican parts of the state have decided not to use the method because of unsubstantiated warnings that they are vulnerable to fraud and “ballot harvesting,” the alleged practice of political groups rounding up and returning hundreds of absentee ballots at once. 

The national Republican party has promised to send more than 100,000 volunteers to serve as election observers.  During the last election, a number of Wisconsin’s most prominent election deniers had the police called on them for disrupting voting during the Democratic primary in an August special election for state Senate. They promised to be back in November. 

In the small town of Thornapple in Rusk County, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against local officials for repeatedly refusing to use electronic voting machines and instead hand counting ballots. The lawsuit argues the town must use machines that allow voters with disabilities to vote. Election conspiracy theorists have regularly called for the hand counting of ballots over concerns that electronic machines — which aren’t connected to the internet — are susceptible to hacking. Election officials say that hand counting adds the threat of human error and voting machines are much more accurate. 

In other states, voting rights advocates have warned that Republican members of election boards and other agencies central to the certification of election results may step in and refuse to certify the election if Trump loses. Mandell says that Wisconsin’s decentralized voting system helps defend against that threat. 

Each municipality has a board of canvass responsible for certifying the local election results, which then get sent to the county boards of canvass and then on to the state. Mandell says that the role played by local officials  Wisconsin means someone denying the certification would be tossing out the votes of their friends and neighbors. That’s an important safeguard, he says. 

“You’re talking about folks not saying ‘I am skeptical of elections,’ or ‘I don’t like election machines,’ or some other nonsense,” he says. “You’re talking about people saying ‘I want to throw out my friends’ and neighbors’ votes. I don’t want my spouse’s vote to count or my family’s votes to count.’ And I think people are understandably and correctly reticent to say such a thing.”

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