Republicans in Yet Another Swing State Suffer Massive Election Blow

Republicans in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania have been dealt a significant blow to their dubious voter suppression efforts.

Earlier this month, six Republican congressmen in the state filed a federal lawsuit against the Pennsylvania secretary of state alleging that ballots cast by Pennsylvania residents living overseas were fraudulent. The suit claimed that state law makes it possible for ineligible voters to cast ballots without providing any proof of identity, leading to inaccurate results. The lawsuit even claimed that “Iranian nationals” could “easily” take advantage of the system and falsify ballots. 

But on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Charles Conner, a George W. Bush appointee, deemed this all to be nonsense. He dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the Republican congressmen were relying on “phantom fears of foreign malfeasance to excuse their lack of diligence,” and had “no good excuse for waiting until barely a month before the election to bring this lawsuit.”

Overseas ballots have been under federal jurisdiction for years under the Uniform and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which is mostly associated with military service members stationed abroad. Many Trump supporters, like Elon Musk, have decried this normal law as a fraudulent Democratic plot to steal the 2024 election, and similar lawsuits have been filed in Michigan and North Carolina.

It’s likely that Republicans have realized that overseas voters aren’t all military, pro-GOP people—a shift that could seriously cost them. “Everyone thought overseas meant military. Not true,” Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell told The Washington Post. “Approx 63% of [overseas] ballots in 2020 were nonmilitary.” But rather than looking inward to determine how to appeal to a broader electorate, the GOP has instead chosen to try to stop people from voting. And while this latest effort was defeated in Pennsylvania, the groundwork for claims of another “stolen” election is still being set right in front of us.

Elon Musk admitted that he knows that Donald Trump’s policies would crash the economy if he’s elected president, but thinks that the price is worth it.

The tech CEO and social media mogul on Monday evening replied to a post on X from right-wing influencer FischerKing64, who posted about how Trump’s plans for mass deportations of immigrants combined with Musk’s plans as a White House adviser to cut federal spending would initially crash the economy, before creating a “sounder footing.”

Musk replied, “Sounds about right.”

It’s a telling admission from Musk that crashing the economy is all a part of the plan.  Experts have repeatedly warned that Trump’s mass deportations on their own would cause damage to critical industries in the U.S., including agriculture, construction, and hospitality.

Undocumented immigrants most commonly take jobs with longer hours, lower wages, and dangerous working conditions that native-born citizens don’t want, such as housekeeping cleaners, cooks, construction workers, and farm workers. These jobs also won’t have American workers lining up to fill them.

Trump’s plan to appoint Musk to his administration, possibly to lead a government efficiency task force, could also have negative effects. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, previously said Musk told him that he plans to look at cuts to government programs like Social Security and the Department of Defense.

Judging by what happened after Musk gutted Twitter and laid off many of its workers after he purchased the social media company, there are justifiable fears that he would cripple essential government programs. Social Security, for example, is a lifeline to many older Americans, and in fact needs more funding, not less.

Musk’s status as the world’s richest man, as well as the success of his companies like SpaceX and Tesla, comes from taxpayer funds. When the government isn’t involved in his ventures, they’ve suffered, such as Twitter (now X), which has lost more than a third of its value since he took over the company. Musk’s confession that the economy would initially get worse under Trump is worrying enough, but his idea that it would lead to a rapid recovery should be cause to reject his plans altogether—as well as the administration that would enable them.

Steve Bannon, the engineer behind Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, was fresh out of prison Tuesday and already drumming up hatred and fear ahead of the presidential election next week.

In his first public appearance on his War Room podcast after completing a four-month stint in federal prison, Bannon once again claimed he was a political prisoner and warned that it could happen to others, too.

“Let me say something, if you’re not prepared to be sent to a federal prison as a political prisoner, then you’re not worthy to be in this movement, and to step forward and try to save your country,” he said. “You have to understand: they want to put you in prison and they will put you in prison. If you can’t accept that, then you don’t know what they represent.”

“They talk about President Trump, ‘He’s gonna do this, he’s gonna do this,’ look at what they’ve done,” Bannon continued.

What Bannon failed to elucidate in his cryptic warnings of political imprisonment is that in his unwavering support of Trump, he broke the law. Bannon had defied a federal subpoena issued as part of the congressional investigation into the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. He had refused to sit for a deposition with the House Committee investigating the riot, and refused to hand over documents related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Joined by Raheem Kassam, a former editor at Bannon’s propaganda machine Breitbart, the Trump ally also bragged about a “wide swath of African American men and Hispanic men” who would be joining the MAGA movement and help deliver victory for the former president.

Bannon also hit back at the “rhetoric” calling members of the MAGA movement “fascist” and defended Trump’s “fantastic, that amazing rally at Madison Square Garden,” which has been completely overshadowed by racist remarks from its speakers, including comedian Tony Hinchcliffe.

Bannon claimed that the rally’s speakers represented a “broad cross-section of American entrepreneurs,” specifically listing Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy.

After being released, the 70-year-old said he felt “amazing, and more importantly empowered” by his prison sentence.

The Trump campaign is still doing damage control after a comedian at his hate rally in New York City made a wildly racist joke about Puerto Rico.

When asked about the joke on Monday, Vance claimed hadn’t “seen” it, which seems highly unlikely given the moment’s virality and the fact that he is running for vice president.

“I’ve heard about the joke; I haven’t actually seen the joke,” Vance said after being asked if the series of racist jokes was setting the right tone for the campaign just one week out from the election.

“Maybe it’s a stupid, racist joke, as you said; maybe it’s not. I haven’t seen it,” he continued. “I’m not gonna comment on the specificity of the joke … but I think that we have to stop getting offended at every little thing in the United States of America, I’m just so over it.”

The series of jokes from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump’s rally already looks like it could cost him the election. Hinchcliffe used his stage time to make vulgar statements about Latino immigrant families, said that he carved Halloween watermelons with a Black man, and, most notably, stated that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”

Vance’s reaction was unwise and hypocritical. This is the same guy who was deeply bothered just by being called “weird” and lied about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets, but it’s the rest of us who need to toughen up. While Trump campaign spokesperson Daniella Alvarez has said the “joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Vance refused to even acknowledge any issue with the joke. While the actual electoral fallout from these comments is yet to be seen, Vance’s flippancy certainly won’t help the Trump campaign.

Joe Rogan says he is still open to interviewing Kamala Harris—if she’ll drop everything and come to him.

Responding to rumors on both sides of the aisle, the podcast host took to X in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to clear up some confusion about why his proposed interview with the vice president hasn’t materialized. TLDR: He’ll only speak with Harris on his terms.

“For the record the Harris campaign has not passed on doing the podcast. They offered a date for Tuesday, but I would have had to travel to her and they only wanted to do an hour. I strongly feel the best way to do it is in the studio in Austin,” wrote Rogan, adding that his “sincere wish is to just have a nice conversation and get to know her as a human being. I really hope we can make it happen.”

With only a week left until Election Day and a packed schedule of rallies, interviews, and campaign events, it seems that Harris may not have Rogan’s audience of mostly Republican and independent young men top of mind. But this lukewarm defense from Rogan makes it clear that he wants to put all the blame on Harris, when really it’s also his stubbornness at fault.

Perhaps Donald Trump set up an impossible standard with his interview for The Joe Rogan Experience, as the Republican nominee backed out of several previously scheduled events to travel to the Austin podcast studio. During his three-hour interview with Trump, Rogan allowed the former president to lie to his millions of viewers about immigration, the economy, and the 2020 election, with Trump stating, “I won that second election so easy.”

With Harris’s tentative cancellation, Rogan’s schedule is wide open, and so the podcaster will now instead interview Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance on Wednesday morning, rather than make any sacrifices to interview the sitting vice president and Democratic nominee for president. Vance will travel to Austin to appear on the show.

Donald Trump’s campaign reportedly stopped comedian Tony Hinchcliffe from calling Kamala Harris a “c*nt” onstage at his rally at Madison Square Garden, raising serious concerns about the severely racist jokes they did allow.

The Bulwark reported Monday that Hinchcliffe’s set had been reviewed by Trump’s campaign, even though the former president’s team claimed they had not vetted all of the comedian’s remarks.

Four top campaign insiders told The Bulwark that one particularly unsavory joke was spotted when Hinchcliffe’s speech was loaded into the teleprompter.

“He had a joke calling Harris a ‘c*nt,’” said one campaign insider, who was involved in discussions about Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden. “Let’s say it was a red flag.”

Hinchcliffe removed the joke from his set when asked by Trump’s staff. However, Hinchcliffe’s other wildly offensive jokes likening Puerto Rico to a “floating island of garbage,” mocking Latinos for not using birth control, saying he had “carved watermelons” with his Black “buddies,” and calling Palestinians “rock-throwers” still made it into the set.

After the rally, Vianca Rodríguez, the deputy director of Hispanic communications for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, said that “they don’t have absolute control” over what the rally’s many speakers said onstage.

The campaign sources told The Bulwark that they hadn’t spotted the other objectionable punch lines because they had all been ad-libbed. Some lines, such as Hinchcliffe’s racist remark about a Black man in the audience, did appear to be riffs, but they still could have been planned by the comedian.

Clearly, Trump’s campaign had some control, as they prevented Hinchcliffe from using profane language. And what they did allow was the horrific joke about Puerto Rico that overshadowed Trump’s entire appearance.

Hinchcliffe reportedly practiced that joke at the comedy club The Stand the night before, where it hadn’t done very well, either. He reportedly said multiple times during his Saturday night set that his jokes would earn a better reaction “tomorrow at the rally.”

Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement Monday that “this joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” referring to Hinchcliffe’s joke about Puerto Rico, leaving the other racist remarks unaddressed.

Without calling Harris the c-word, there were still plenty of hateful remarks made about her. One speaker was David Rem, a sanitation worker who was billed as Trump’s childhood friend (though they reportedly met for the first time just two weeks ago, per Newsweek). Rem called Harris the “Antichrist.”

And Trump’s campaign doesn’t seem totally opposed to using the slur. Elon Musk’s America PAC shared a 34-second ad Monday that referred to Harris as “the c-word” multiple times.

Donald Trump is ready to start the steal.

In a Truth Social post late Monday night, Trump began sowing doubt about election results in Pennsylvania just days into early voting.

“Wow! York County, Pennsylvania, received THOUSANDS of potentially FRAUDULENT Voter Registration Forms and Mail-In Ballot Applications from a third party group,” he wrote, grossly misconstruing a normal election proceeding.

It is true that York County’s Office of Elections received thousands of voter registration forms and mail-in ballot applications. There is nothing beyond the pale happening. The forms were dropped off by a nonpartisan voter-turnout organization called the Voter Registration Project, also known as Everybody Votes.

“As with all submissions, our staff follows a process for ensuring all voter registrations and mail-in ballot requests are legal,” said York County President Commissioner Julie Wheeler to the York Daily Record, noting that the county will examine the forms and applications to look for any possible fraud. “We’re in a phase now where we need to do our homework before we go and make accusations when we don’t have the data to back it up.”

Meanwhile, Trump also spread lies about nearby Lancaster County, writing in the same post that the county was “caught with 2600 Fake Ballots and Forms, all written by the same person. Really bad ‘stuff.’ WHAT IS GOING ON IN PENNSYLVANIA??? Law Enforcement must do their job, immediately!!! WOW!!!”

Again, Trump is highlighting a standard process of ensuring election integrity and painting it as a large-scale nefarious scheme by Democrats. Lancaster County officials are combing through 2,500 last-minute voter registrations and identifying any red flags. After seeing some forms with false names and similar handwriting, concerns “were raised during the staff’s normal process to review and enter applications into [a state database] and law enforcement was alerted,” the local election board said in a statement. There is no evidence that there are thousands of fake ballots “all written by the same person,” as Trump claimed.

As Election Day looms, expect more of these extreme exaggerations—especially in swing states—from Trump and his Republican friends.

Donald Trump and his presidential campaign are facing a huge backlash over a comedian’s racist joke about Puerto Rico at his rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at the rally ahead of Trump’s speech, forcing the campaign to go into damage control and condemn the remarks. But Trump hasn’t personally commented or posted any such condemnation on his Truth Social page, and the fallout is growing. 

Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania are reportedly furious over the comments, according to Politico. A nonpartisan group representing Puerto Ricans in the state plans to circulate a letter urging its members to vote against Trump, while other members of the community were forwarding footage of the joke on WhatsApp and urging action.

The president of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Puerto Rican Agenda, Roberto L. Lugo, told Politico that the group plans to release a letter condemning the comments and urging Puerto Ricans in the state not to vote for Trump, saying that he was “really disturbed” by the joke.

“I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I’m independent,” Lugo said. “But at this point, it’s not about political, partisan issues. It is about the respect and honor our Puerto Ricans and Latinos deserved as citizens and legal residents of this country, that’s the issue.”

Protests are being planned for Trump’s Tuesday rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania, which has one of the largest Puerto Rican populations in the state and is a majority-Latino city. Plus, the PPL Center, where the rally is being held, is in the middle of Allentown’s Puerto Rican neighborhood. 

A school district in the city has even canceled classes on Tuesday.

Even Pennsylvania Republicans who support Trump, like state Representative Ryan Mackenzie, have come out against the joke.

“The comments made by this so-called ‘comedian’ at Madison Square Garden weren’t funny, they were offensive and wrong,” said Mackenzie, who is in a close race for U.S. Congress against Democratic Representative Susan Wild.

The archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico’s largest city, is demanding an apology from Trump, as is the chairman of Puerto Rico’s Republican Party, Angel Cintróni.

“If Donald Trump doesn’t apologize to Puerto Rico, I’m not going to vote for him,” Cintrón said on Jugando Pelota Dura, a Puerto Rican talk show Monday. Cintrón helped to secure Trump’s nomination for president at the Republican National Convention in July.

An apology may be too little and too late, though.

“If Donald Trump really wanted to disassociate himself with that, the first thing he would have said when he came onto the stage at Madison Square Garden was, ‘Hey, listen, I heard that person’s attempt at humor. It was not funny. I stand with the Puerto Rican community,’” Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told a radio station in northeast Pennsylvania on Monday. “He didn’t do that.”

A top Trump ally is free from federal prison and says he’s feeling “empowered” less than a week before Election Day.

Former Trump campaign official and self-described “political prisoner” Steve Bannon was released from a Connecticut Federal Correctional Institution Tuesday after serving four months for contempt of Congress. In 2021, Bannon refused to comply with the House January 6 committee’s probe into the insurrection, failing to produce requested documents and refusing to comply with a subpoena. He was convicted in 2022.

Bannon told Axios upon his release that he felt “amazing and more importantly empowered,” after doing time—chilling words from a man who was too antagonistic and bigoted for even Trump’s inner circle. The man known for enthusiastically platforming white nationalists and making hateful assertions about immigrants, Muslims, and then some could shoot a new dose of chaos into the already vulgar Trump campaign with his conspiracy-laden podcast.

This summer, Trump told reporters that Bannon’s conviction was “absolutely” politically motivated and that other people have done “far, far bigger things.” Bannon took the “political prisoner” mantle very seriously upon his arrest, stating, “If this is what it takes to stand up to tyranny, If this is what it takes to stand up to the Garland corrupt, criminal DOJ, if this is what it takes to stand up to Nancy Pelosi, if this is what it takes to stand up to Joe Biden, I’m proud to do it.”

The 70-year-old faces more criminal charges in New York state court, where he allegedly scammed donors who pledged money toward constructing the U.S.-Mexico border wall. The trial is set for December. Bannon has pleaded not guilty.

A conservative panelist has been banned from CNN the night after he said that he hoped another commentator’s “beeper wouldn’t go off,” after they expressed support for Palestinians.

A panel on CNN’s Newsnight with Abby Phillip descended into chaos Monday as conservative political consultant Ryan Girdusky made an offensive comment to Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan, who is Muslim.* Girdusky is on the board of advisers for American Moment, one of many advisory groups for Project 2025, the fascist playbook for a second Trump administration.

The panel was discussing the racist remarks at Donald Trump’s rally in New York City on Sunday, when Hasan argued, “If you don’t want to be called Nazis, stop doing things [associated with Nazis].”

“You’ve been called an antisemite more than anyone else at this table,” Girdusky replied, referring to Hasan’s outspoken criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“Yeah, yeah. By you?” Hasan asked.

“By me? No, I never called you an antisemite,” Girdusky said.

“I’m a supporter of the Palestinians, so I’m used to it,” Hasan said, shrugging.

“Yeah, well I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” Girdusky replied. His comment was a clear reference to Israel’s attack in Lebanon, which Israel claimed only targeted beepers held by Hezbollah but actually killed at least 12 people, including two children, and injured 2,800 others.

“Did you just say I should die? Did you just say I should be killed?” Hasan responded incredulously.

As Phillip and Hasan challenged Girdusky, the right-winger backpedaled desperately, claiming that he thought Hasan had said he was a supporter of Hamas, suggesting he thinks showing support for Palestinian civilians is tantamount to terrorism. But no one was buying it.

“Are you?” Girdusky asked.

“No, of course I’m not a supporter of Hamas. Are you a racist, violent person inciting violence against me?” Hasan responded.

After the panel, CNN released a statement on Phillip’s social media saying that Girdusky would not be invited back as a guest. “There is zero room for racism or bigotry at CNN or on our air,” the statement said.

“We aim to foster thoughtful conversations and debate between people who profoundly disagree with each other in order to explore important issues and promote mutual understanding.”

But how did Girdusky end up on air in the first place?

Notably, Girdusky isn’t just a conservative; he’s far right. Girdusky previously wrote for notorious neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, according to posts on Spencer’s X accounts. Girdusky also once laughed about being Islamophobic with Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, a far-right neofascist group.

Girdusky is a former staffer of Trump’s running mate, JD Vance. Before that, he started the 1776 Project PAC, which mobilized opposition to “critical race theory” being taught in public schools. Girdusky had no children at the time.

Girdusky didn’t take being banned well at all. “You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatar-funded media. Apparently you can’t go on CNN if you make a joke. I’m glad America gets to see what CNN stands for,” he wrote on X.

Earlier Monday, Girdusky had been whining about the “humor police” on X, who criticized comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s jokes at Trump’s rally. Clearly he didn’t heed his own warnings, as only hours later, he landed in hot water for a disgusting “joke” of his own.

* This story has been updated.