Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / Final Midterms update - America

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Final Midterms update - America · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: We are now just days from the US midterm elections.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so today I'm going to talk about just one thing, which is the many ways
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: the administration is working to tilt the result
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: and to lay the groundwork for disputing the result of it loses.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And everything I'm covering is literally just been happening in the last few weeks.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there's been loads over the previous months,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: which I've covered in other videos.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take it in kind of three parts, which is firstly
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: the hunt for voter fraud, then the moves against counting of votes,
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: and then finally how the Republicans are choosing to close their campaign.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, if I sound croaky, it's because I've got a cold.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'll start with the hunt for fraud.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Reuters this week has pieced together the size of the campaign.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: The administration has issued more
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  SPEAKER_00: than a hundred subpoenas for voter records across at least 13
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  SPEAKER_00: states, demanding information on tens of thousands of people.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, the Justice Department has sued
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  SPEAKER_00: 30 states that refused to hand over their voter rolls to the government.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, so far, it's lost every one of those voter roll cases.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: But undeterred, Trump has now announced a $1 million reward
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  SPEAKER_00: for information about voting for that leads to a conviction.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: He has not said where that money would come from.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: The administration has been sending states and counties lists of people
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  SPEAKER_00: that it says are non-citizens, and has demanded that these people
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  SPEAKER_00: not be allowed to vote, and that if they do
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: vote, that their ballots are set aside and not counted.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that these lists are full of mistakes.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: In Nevada.
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  SPEAKER_00: Federal officials first claimed nearly 16,000
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: noncitizens were on the voter rolls, then revised that down to under 200,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then Nevada actually concluded that even those 200 people were all citizens.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: In California,
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  SPEAKER_00: The Justice Department has demanded that more than 20,000 ballots be set aside.
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  SPEAKER_00: But state officials reviewed
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  SPEAKER_00: kind of a sample of just 200, chosen at random of those names,
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: and found that at least 40% appeared to be people born in the US.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so the US citizens who should never have been on these lists
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  SPEAKER_00: And being born abroad doesn't even make you ineligible
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: because naturalized citizens are also eligible to vote.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the senior Justice Department official who led the administration's
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: effort against California
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  SPEAKER_00: admitted that the government's list might include citizens, just saying
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: “We're not perfect.”
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So all the evidence says that non-citizens voting is just not a big issue.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And even in this administration, prosecutors have charged
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: fewer than 150 people of voting illegally as non-citizens, including
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: 28 in California, in just the last week.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's fewer than one case for every million people who voted in 2024.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And most of these cases remain unresolved.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not that those 150 are all guilty, but state
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: officials who are resisting this push are being threatened.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: In Butte County in California, the Justice Department
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: sent the local election official there a list of 47 supposedly non-citizens,
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  SPEAKER_00: and told him to set their ballots aside within two days or face prosecution.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the official checked the list.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: He found duplicate entries.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: He found incomplete entries and names of people who were not even on his rolls.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he was left with only six people that might be worth a second look.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, he said that California law requires extraordinary proof to challenge
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  SPEAKER_00: the voters eligibility, and the Justice Department's list did not come close.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So he just set the list aside and said nothing would change.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the administration has not yet responded to his resistance.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Legal experts say that kind of the real point of this may not be the prosecutions,
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  SPEAKER_00: which are a really small number, but what kind of comes after the vote?
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  SPEAKER_00: Because what this is doing is giving the administration an excuse
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  SPEAKER_00: to contest close results, so that a losing Republican candidate
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  SPEAKER_00: can claim
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  SPEAKER_00: that suspected noncitizen votes made it impossible to know who really won,
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  SPEAKER_00: demanding the ballots, and then potentially trying to throw out the result.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now to the counting of the votes themselves.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: The US attorney general, Todd Blanche, was asked
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: whether the Justice Department might step in when states certify their results.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he basically refused to rule it out.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he's also been appearing at Republican campaign events,
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  SPEAKER_00: which breaks the convention
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  SPEAKER_00: that should keep federal law enforcement out of party politics.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now the administration is already stepping in and interfering.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So in Alaska, the Justice Department has filed a preemptive lawsuit
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: to block the state from certifying its Senate race
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  SPEAKER_00: if the Republican incumbent, Dan Sullivan, loses.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: So their reason for doing this, or their stated reason for doing,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: is that there is another man called Daniel J.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sullivan on the ballot, and they say voters might be confused.
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  SPEAKER_00: But under the Constitution, the executive
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: branch has almost no role in certifying elections.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a matter for the state.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it's not really up
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  SPEAKER_00: to the Justice Department to do anything in this situation.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there's also
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: absolutely no law against people with the same name running for office.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So this kind of preemptive federal suit to block certification of a race,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: if the president's own party loses is unheard of.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Trump made clear that this was his idea.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he confirmed that he personally
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: directed the Justice Department to bring this suit against Alaska.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Trump also attacked Alaskan Republican
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Senator Lisa Murkowski, who's frequently opposed him.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: and Trump demanded that the Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, be barred
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: from the race altogether, threatening legal and political consequences
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: over an allegation that election law experts say
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  SPEAKER_00: actually isn't even illegal, even if the allegation was true.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, in these
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: kind of last days of the campaign, the Republicans are resorting
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: to ever more overt racism to try and swing voters their way.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So in Michigan, where Democratic Senate candidate
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Abdul El-Sayed is a Muslim, Trump called him a jihadist.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Trump
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  SPEAKER_00: also said that he'd have to go through a metal detector to get into the Senate.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Vice president JD Vance went even further, claiming
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: that El-Sayed would lead rioters in burning down Detroit.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the health secretary, RFK Junior, told
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: a Michigan event that Arabs do not produce science or literature
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  SPEAKER_00: and have not won major prizes, which is both racist and plain wrong.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: At a rally in Kansas, Trump then used the unrest in France
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: to warn the crowd about, in his words, migrants, jihadists and communists
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  SPEAKER_00: and told him that this is what the other side wants for America.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where we are now.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: The midterms are next week.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: As ever, all of these actions
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: with their sources and more are at TrumpActionTracker.info.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll see you on the other side.