Trump pushes false election claims, ‘weaves’ from topics during Joe Rogan interview
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(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump used his appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” to push false claims about the 2020 election, bash his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and attack his former White House staff.
The episode, which went live Friday night, likely reached one of the biggest podcast audiences in the country, with over 15.7 million followers on Spotify. Trump’s interview caused a three-hour delay at a planned rally in Michigan Friday night.
With just over a week to go until November’s election, Trump continued to spread doubts about the election results, slammed secure voting practices, such as mail-in voting and voting machines, and doubled down on his false beliefs that he won the 2020 presidential election.
“You had old-fashioned ballot screwing,” Trump told Joe Rogan, making unfounded claims about unsigned ballots and “phony votes.”
Rogan compared the label of election denialist to the labeling of anti-vaxxer, with Trump railing against mail-in voting despite telling his supporters to go out and vote however they want.
When Rogan asked Trump why he didn’t publish comprehensive evidence of alleged voter fraud in 2020, the former president got combative, falsely claiming he did and argued he lost the election because judges “didn’t have what it took.”
When Rogan brought up Democrats and Harris labeling him a fascist, Trump shot back.
“Kamala is a very low IQ person. She’s a very low IQ,” the former president said.
Trump, who has come under fire after former Chief of Staff John Kelly said in interviews that Trump praised Nazi generals, told Rogan he had an affinity for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. “He took a war that should have been over in a few days, and it was, you know, years of hell of vicious war,” Trump said.
The unedited episode was more of a conversation than an interview as Rogan asked Trump to reminisce on his political arch and let him ramble about various topics from the environment to the economy to health care.
However, in the freeform format, even Rogan got lost at times.
“Your weave is getting wide. I wanna get back to tariffs,” Rogan said at one point.
Trump referenced his style of talking at a rally in August, calling it “the weave.”
“I’ll talk about like, nine different things and they all come back brilliantly together,” he said at the time.
On the Rogan podcast, Trump defended his own age and cognitive acuity while attacking President Joe Biden’s cognitive ability.
“Biden gives people a bad name because that’s not an old – that’s not an age. I think they say it because I’m three or four years younger, you know? I think that’s why they say it. They say his age. It’s not his age. He’s got a problem,” Trump said.
While talking about the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden, Rogan floated a disproven conspiracy theory that Democrats wanted the debate to happen earlier than usual to get Biden out of the race.
Trump acknowledged it but disagreed, saying, “I don’t think anybody thought he was going to get out,” referring to Biden.
Toward the end of the podcast, Rogan asked Trump about extraterrestrial life and if Trump believed in aliens to which the former president went on to say there may be life on Mars.
“Mars, we’ve had probes there and rovers, and I don’t think there’s any life there,” Rogan pushed back.
“Maybe it’s life that we don’t know about,” Trump retorted.
(WASHINGTON) — Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was back on Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with Republican lawmakers as misconduct allegations continued to cloud his selection to lead the Pentagon.
Behind the scenes, Trump’s political team is focused on figuring out where female Republican senators stand on Hegseth, according to two people involved in the conversations. Trump’s advisers are fully aware that with such a thin GOP Senate majority, Hegseth’s fate could all come down to the women in the conference.
Sen. Joni Ernst, a key Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee that will hold his confirmation hearings, notably declined to voice support for Hegseth after meeting with him on Wednesday and then again on Thursday on Fox News, which Trump is known to watch.
Ernst told Fox News host Bill Hemmer she had a “very frank” and “productive” discussion with Hegseth. When pressed by Hemmer that that didn’t sound as if she had gotten to a yes on his confirmation, she replied, “I think you are right.”
Ernst is the first female combat veteran to serve in the Senate and a sexual assault survivor herself. Hegseth has faced allegations of sexual assault (which he’s denied) and previously said that women should not serve in ground combat roles in the military.
ABC News was told Trump has expressed to those close to him that Hegseth should have been more honest and forthcoming about the challenges he could face getting through the confirmation process given his history.
Trump, who is considering other options (a list that includes Ernst) for the role, has not been working the phones for Hegseth — as he did for Matt Gaetz.
Gaetz was Trump’s original pick for attorney general but said he withdrew his name from consideration as he faced his own allegations of sexual misconduct. Trump has since tapped former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi to head up the Justice Department, pending Senate confirmation.
Hegseth has told senators his mother has been making calls to senators on his behalf, according to sources familiar with the matter. He has also told senators he is open to a background check, according to multiple sources.
“The allegation was made about him being intoxicated at several times and so the questions that every member will be asking him led to his statement,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, current ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and expected to take over the chairmanship in January — presiding over Hegseth’s confirmation hearings.
Hegseth on Thursday was expected to meet with Republican Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Jim Banks of Indiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Hegseth told reporters as he walked through the Capitol that he’d spoken with Trump on Thursday morning.
“He is behind us all the way,” Hegseth said when asked by ABC News’ Jay O’Brien what Trump had told him during their conversation.
When asked if he thought he had the votes to be confirmed, Hegseth dodged the question but said he was continuing to work his way through the process.
(WASHINGTON) — Republican Sen. Mike Rounds emphasized his support for current FBI Director Christopher Wray, whom President-elect Donald Trump intends to fire and replace with the loyalist Kash Patel.
“I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term,” Rounds told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl about Wray. “When we meet with him behind closed doors, I’ve had no objections to the way that he’s handled himself, and so I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now.”
However, Rounds reiterated the president-elect’s right to select his Cabinet and Trump’s selection of Patel is not surprising.
“It doesn’t surprise me that he will pick people that he believes are very loyal to himself, and that’s been a part of the process,” Rounds said. “Every president wants people that are loyal to themselves.”
A staunch supporter of Ukraine, Rounds called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “tyrant” and suggested that negotiating with him might be futile.
“I think Mr. Putin is a tyrant. I think dealing with him is going to be extremely difficult,” Rounds said, expressing hope for Trump to succeed but recognizing that this will be a challenge for “any president.”
He added that you can’t trust “a guy that doesn’t honor their word,” which he says Putin had done.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — As Americans head to the polls this Election Day, trust that their vote will be counted accurately and that the democratic process is safe from interference is vital, experts said.
But with early voting well underway and just days before the remainder of the 2024 presidential election ballots are cast, unfounded conspiracy theories about the safety of voting machines loom over the fight for the White House.
The 2020 election saw former President Donald Trump sparking some distrust in the voting system that was purported by some fellow Republicans, supporters and media outlets.
Despite voting machine conspiracy theories, such as internet hacking and widespread physical tampering, being debunked, misinformation about the democratic process is ubiquitous on social media and fodder for some of the recent lawsuits filed by RNC-aligned groups in key swing states.
Elon Musk — a major Trump backer and the owner of X — recently continued to stoke voting machines falsehoods, telling the crowd at a town hall in Pennsylvania, “The last thing I would do is trust a computer program, because it’s just too easy to hack,” Musk said.
However, multiple reviews into 2020 voter fraud claims and a landmark defamation lawsuit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News found the vote-rigging conspiracy theories, and Trump’s assertion he won the election over President Joe Biden, to be unfounded.
In April 2023, Dominion reached a nearly $800 million settlement with Fox for spreading the false theories across the conservative news stations’ platforms.
Additionally, state and federal courts dismissed more than 60 lawsuits across six states from Trump and his allies aiming to overturn the 2020 election results.
“There was no credibility to those claims,” Lauren Cristella, the president of Committee of Seventy, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization in Philadelphia, told ABC News.
“I am confident that our elections are free, fair, safe and secure, and that the systems we have in place, the checks and balances that we have in place, are working,” Cristella added.
So, how do voting machines work? And what security measures are in place from the federal level to the community level to ensure that every vote is counted and free from interference?
Before Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris vie for America’s vote on Nov. 5, experts said understanding the security measures that follow ballots from the polls to the count can bring clarity and comfort to the process.
What voting machines are used in the election?
While election officials use technology for voter registration, tallying, and, in some cases, vote-casting, the system is largely centered around paper ballots.
“In nearly all places across the country, about 98% of voters, when they cast their ballot, there is going to be a paper record of their vote,” Derek Tisler, who serves as counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s elections and government program, told ABC News.
Historically, there have been five types of voting machines used in the U.S.: hand-counted paper, mechanical lever machines, punch-card machines, scanned paper ballots and direct-recording electronic devices, according to the MIT Election Lab.
Going into the 2024 election, optical scan paper ballot systems are widely used to tally physical ballot votes, which can be likened to the technology used to score a standardized test, according to MIT.
Voters mark their ballots in a private voting booth and then it is scanned as it’s being deposited in the ballot box, with the votes being tallied at the end of the day.
Direct recording electronic systems utilize buttons or a touch screen to record votes, often with a paper ballot record for audits or a recount.
And ballot-marking devices and systems, which are entirely electronic, are primarily used to accommodate voters with disabilities.
There are 10 different voting system manufacturers that have been tested and approved by the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC), including Clear Ballot, Dominion Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software (ES&S), to name a few.
The road to approval includes stress tests on the equipment and checks for software flaws, making sure the machines have the basic functionality, accessibility and security capabilities required of these systems, according to the EAC.
“So every voting system, including ours, goes through a certification process in accredited test labs,” Chip Trowbridge, the chief technology officer of Clear Ballot, told ABC News.
“Every change, no matter how big or how small, if it’s a source code or software change, has to be reviewed,” Trowbridge said.
Individual states and local jurisdictions also have certification processes for voting machine manufacturers that vary based on location, according to Trowbridge.
What safety measures are taken to protect voting machines?
One of the first lines of defense against tampering is the physical security of voting machines, according to Ted Allen, an integrated systems engineer professor at Ohio State University and member of the MIT Election Lab.
Leading up to Election Day and after votes are cast, the machines are stored in secure locations with access limited to election officials, Allen told ABC News.
At polling locations, voting machines are constantly under surveillance, with election officials and security personnel trained to ensure that no unauthorized access is possible, according to Allen.
“The paper, the chain of custody of the equipment and the chain of custody of the ballots are all generally, very carefully studied and controlled,” Allen said.
The 2020 election, however, did see a few individuals being charged for with tampering with voting machines.
Tina Peters, a Republican election official in Colorado, was sentenced to nine years in prison for leading a security breach of the county’s election system after being inspired by false and baseless claims of voting fraud.
She was convicted for giving an individual access to the election software she used for her county. Screenshots of the software appeared on right-wing websites.
In Georgia, bail bondsman Scott Hall was charged in relation to the alleged breach of voting machine equipment in the wake of the 2020 election in Coffee County.
Hall and several of his co-defendants allegedly “entered into a conspiracy to intentionally interfere” with the 2020 election results and “unlawfully” access voting machines in order to obtain data, including images of ballots.
Hall pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties. He will get probation and has agreed to testify moving forward, including at the trial of other co-defendants.
While no system is ever completely impervious to threats, voting machines are protected by a range of technical and procedural measures that make them extremely difficult to hack.
A spokesperson for Election Systems & Software, Inc., told ABC News, that outside of physical controls, the company’s voting equipment adheres to secure practices for the creation, transfer and storage of important election files and data.
Using encryption and digital signing for data, cryptographic modules that meet the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) and creating encrypted USB flash drives programmed for that specific election all prevent tampering by unauthorized agents, according to ES&S.
Do voting machines connect to the internet?
A key safeguard in making voting machines difficult to hack is the lack of internet access during the voting process.
The machines used to scan ballots at a voting precinct are incapable of having any Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, radio or network connection at all, according to Trowbridge.
“Those systems absolutely cannot have any network,” Trowbridge said. “In fact, if you look at the machines from Clear Ballot, the only wire that comes out of them is a power cord.”
Central scanning equipment is networked, according to Trowbridge, but the technology is on an air-gapped network that is completely separate from the public internet.
This significantly reduces the risk of remote hacking or unauthorized access from external sources, he said.
Even if a hacker attempts to access a voting machine, they would need to physically tamper with the machine itself, which may be more challenging due to the physical security measures.
Looking to Nov. 5, Derek Tisler emphasized there are always checks and balances available in the process to make sure that there is no one individual who could disrupt anything.
“Public trust is so essential to the democratic process, and that is why elections are transparent,” Tisler said.
