On Monday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: The U.S. will send an anti-missile system to Israel , and the troops to operate it. A Nevada man was arrested with loaded firearms, multiple passports bearing different names and an unregistered vehicle at a checkpoint ahead of a Donald Trump rally. Who is he ? USA TODAY Congress & Campaigns Reporter Riley Beggin discusses uncommitted Democratic voters and how they could impact next month's election. USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Bart Jansen talks about how Donald Trump could fight to overturn election results if he were to lose.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Monday, October 14th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, the latest from the Middle East as the US plans to send a new anti-missile system to Israel with limited US troops. Plus, a man has been arrested near a Donald Trump rally with loaded firearms and multiple passports bearing different names. And can voters who previously marked themselves as uncommitted still swing the presidential election?
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The US said yesterday it will send an advanced anti-missile system to Israel along with the US troops to operate it. President Joe Biden said he was sending the system to defend Israel, and about 100 troops will be deployed as part of the effort according to multiple reports. The move comes to help bolster Israel's air defenses following missile attacks by Iran. That country's foreign minister warned yesterday that the United States was putting the lives of US troops at risk. Iran earlier this month fired ballistic missiles at Israel after Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in an airstrike in Beirut last month. Meanwhile, Israel continues to strike Lebanon, killing at least 15 people in recent strikes and injuring at least two UN peacekeepers. Over the weekend, Israel also ordered the evacuation of 23 southern Lebanese towns as their escalating conflict with Iran-backed Lebanese group, Hezbollah continues. The Israeli military also said Hezbollah had fired nearly 320 projectiles from Lebanon into Israel on Saturday.
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A Las Vegas man was arrested with loaded firearms, multiple passports, bearing different names, and an unregistered vehicle at a checkpoint ahead of a rally by former President Donald Trump in Southern California on Saturday according to officials. Trump was never in danger. The Secret Service, the FBI and the US Attorney's office said in a joint statement. The arrest comes after two assassination attempts against Trump in recent months. The 49-year-old man Vem Miller was associated with a far-right movement called the Sovereign Citizens, according to the local Sheriff. Miller was arrested after police officers questioned him at a checkpoint and noticed his vehicle sported an irregular license plate. The license plate was one that is homemade and indicative of a group of individuals that claim to be sovereign Citizens, according to Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco speaking to reporters yesterday. The Sovereign citizen movement is a disparate collection of thousands, if not tens of thousands of anti-government radicals who believe they're not subject to local or national laws or authority. Many sovereign citizens, for example, believe they don't have to pay taxes, and they've gone to court with several high-profile examples where they've argued their case unsuccessfully. Miller has since been released on bail.
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Can uncommitted voters still swing the presidential election? I spoke with USA TODAY, Congress and Campaigns reporter Riley Beggin about why some in key swing states voted uncommitted in the Democratic primary and where their votes might land in the election next month. Riley, thanks for hopping on today.
Riley Beggin:
Anytime.
Taylor Wilson:
So Riley, would you just start by telling us about some of these voters in swing states who voted uncommitted earlier this year in the Democratic presidential primary? Who are they and what are the big issues that led them to vote uncommitted?
Riley Beggin:
Primarily the voters we're talking about are young, progressive, or they may be Arab or Muslim, have connections to what's going on in the Middle East, and that's what prompted this movement. Essentially after the October 7th attack last year on Israel, Israel retaliated in Gaza. There's been ongoing conflict there that has led to tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza. And it's drawn some significant backlash from a base of the Democratic Party. These voters were trying to register their frustration with the Biden administration and their support for Israel. There were tens of thousands of voters in North Carolina, over a hundred thousand voters in Michigan cast their ballot. These are swing states where they really could be potentially impacting the results of the presidential election.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, so the Biden administration have been in office. How have they really approached Israel and Gaza over the past year in particular, and what exactly is it that some of these voters take issue with?
Riley Beggin:
President Joe Biden has been a longtime ally of Israel. He used to be the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, so he's been really supportive publicly. Behind the scenes, he has done a little bit more pushing Netanyahu to back off and limit civilian deaths. He's obviously been trying to broker a hostage negotiation to get a ceasefire in Gaza. But he's been hesitant to really be publicly pushing back on Israel in a way that a lot of the democratic base might like to see. So while Biden and Harris have a pretty similar policy approach to Israel, their rhetoric is a little bit different, and that has changed things for some of these uncommitted voters who are more hopeful that Harris is willing to listen to them.
Taylor Wilson:
And of course, Riley, Donald Trump has not been in office the last few years, but really how has he approached some of these issues that we've talked about in the Middle East? How do these uncommitted voters feel about his stances here?
Riley Beggin:
Trump has been a huge supporter of Israel, and he has used some pretty strong language about the protesters who are demanding a ceasefire and looking for more humanitarian rights for the folks in Gaza. So you would expect that a lot of these uncommitted voters do not want Donald Trump to be in the presidency. But a lot of people we're finding are actually sort of more in between. The Arab American Institute just did a big survey a few weeks ago and found that among their voter base, which Arab Americans, people are pretty tied between Harris and Trump. I think that's a little bit different among young voters. Progressive voters of course, prefer Harris in this election. But I think it's a little bit more complicated than you might expect. So the Trump campaign has actually been courting Muslim and Arab American voters and trying to take advantage of that sort of wiggle room by promising peace in the Middle East.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So Riley, we're into the final stretch, less than four weeks to go until election day. How are Harris and Trump really approaching this voting bloc in the final weeks before the election?
Riley Beggin:
I think there's definitely more to lose here for Harris because young people, progressive people, Arab Americans and Muslim voters are really typically a fundamental part of the Democratic coalition. So she needs their votes to be able to cobble together the number of votes that Biden got last time and potentially grow them from there. So Harris is making efforts to really show these people that she has learned from the mistakes of the Biden administration that she is willing to go further. That has really taken the form of rhetoric and less actual policy change. And that's the thing that some of these people who are still deciding how they're going to vote here are having frustrations with, they'd like to see more concrete plans from Harris rather than just messaging.
Taylor Wilson:
So in terms of the tangible impact on election results next month, Riley, what does the polling really tell us about some of these uncommitted voters and where they actually will turn when they cast a ballot next month? And what's the expectation right now?
Riley Beggin:
There is not a lot of reliable polling on uncommitted voters. The polling that we have nationwide about people who are undecided, it's a really narrow group of people. A recent USA TODAY poll found about 7.5% of respondents said they were undecided, which is still a pretty small amount. And of course, within the democratic leaning side of that, a portion of those people cited the ongoing conflict in Gaza as a reason that they were still undecided. People who are organizing Arab American voters, Muslim voters have said that they essentially are worried about this, and they're trying to tell folks in their community, listen, we have too much to lose here and Trump would be worse on this issue. Let's elect Harris and push her to do more here. That certainly signals that there's concern, but some pollsters in places like Michigan that I've spoken to have said, we're not seeing it in the numbers that Muslim and Arab American voters could potentially swing the outcome in this case specifically because young voters have really embraced Harris.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Riley Beggin covers Congress and campaigns for USA TODAY. Riley, I always appreciate picking your brain. Thanks for hopping on.
Riley Beggin:
Of course. Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
Donald Trump and allies filed scores of lawsuits challenging 2020 election results, and the cases reveal what could be in store this year if Trump were to lose again. I spoke with USA TODAY, Justice Department correspondent Bart Jansen for more. Bart, I appreciate you hopping on as always.
Bart Jansen:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So Bart, how are Donald Trump and his allies really already setting the stage for legal challenges to the election?
Bart Jansen:
Well, as you'll recall, Trump filed 60 plus lawsuits after his loss in 2020 trying to challenge those results. All but one of them were thrown out or rejected by the courts so that the results stood and President Joe Biden took office. But there's expectation this year that if he doesn't win this election, that he will again try to challenge the results. He's told our own member of the USA TODAY Network, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that if everything's honest, he'd gladly accept the results, but if not, he's going to have to fight for the rest of the country. There's some expectation that he could file lawsuits. In the meantime, the Republican National Committee has already filed more than 100 lawsuits across more than half the states, challenging basically aspects of election rules about who gets to vote, how they vote. The Republicans say they just want to make sure that only Americans vote, that they follow the rules, that the laws are obeyed, so that under the common sense principle, Americans decide their own elections.
Taylor Wilson:
Really, what are the major issues that GOP lawsuits would be expected to challenge after a hypothetical Trump loss this time? I mean, what are the allegations that they're really centering these on?
Bart Jansen:
A couple of the major themes are citizenship of voters and how mail-in ballots are counted and processed. On the citizenship issue, the GOP lawsuits are focused on making sure that states register and identify voters to ensure that non-citizens can't vote. In a partial victory, the Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law requiring voters to prove their citizenship when registering on a state form. But election observers say that this really isn't much of a problem. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU did a 2016 study that found only 30 votes out of 23 million cast in 42 jurisdictions were from suspected non-citizens. So it doesn't seem to be much of a problem, but yet the Republicans are just trying to make sure that only citizens vote, as they say.
The mail-in ballots, there've been a number of lawsuits. Some have focused on how they're filled out. Do they have the signature, the required date? The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates won't be counted this year. That decision is still being challenged. We'll have to see if an appeal could possibly turn that over. Lots of these sorts of cases are making their way through appeals. There's also a case about mail ballots deadlines. In 14 states, plus the District of Columbia, states have a grace period for mailed ballots that are postmarked by election day, but then arrive within one to 14 days afterward. Those states will count those ballots. The Republican National Committee has challenged that grace period in Mississippi, which has a 5 day grace period saying that only votes cast by election day should be counted. And that case has already made its way to the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals, which has held a hearing on it. We're still waiting on that decision about whether the deadline will be upheld and probably either way that gets decided, it would be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Mississippi may not be one of the toss up or decisive states, but if you got rid of these grace periods, several of the largest states, California, New York, Texas, all have these grace periods. So people would want to think differently about how to mail their ballots. Of course, election officials and postal officials have urged absentee voters to mail their ballots at least a week before the election to give it time to get to the election officials by election day. Don't run the risk of having a late ballot not counted
Taylor Wilson:
As you write in the piece, Bart, there could be some obstacles to lawsuits into 2025, including that many lawyers might want to avoid any charges or sanctions they could face for doing this kind of work. Would you talk through that a bit?
Bart Jansen:
Yeah. We had some legal experts saying that there were criminal charges filed against some of Trump's lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell. Some of those folks have already pled guilty to some of the charges, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis in Georgia. In addition, there were sanctions levied against some of these lawyers in Michigan. Lawyers were ordered to pay $175,000 because of basically overstating claims in a lawsuit up there. So these punishments to the lawyers that represented him are seen as perhaps discouraging lawyers taking his cases this time around. Now, even people that say that they might be more leery about taking those cases, say he probably can still find lawyers if he chooses to file lawsuits, to take the cases that perhaps they would just file arguments claims under slightly more solid footing than the accusations last time.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Bart Janssen covers the Justice Department for USA TODAY. Thank you, Bart.
Bart Jansen:
Thanks for having me.
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Taylor Wilson:
And today is Indigenous Peoples Day. The day marks Native American history and culture. And while the second Monday in October has historically been celebrated as Columbus Day and is still federally recognized as such, many have pushed for moving away from the holiday to acknowledge the atrocities Columbus committed against people living in the Americas long before his arrival.
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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US to send 100 troops to operate anti-missile system in Israel | The Excerpt
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