Trump allies and advisors now accusing Khizr Khan and also his son of being Muslim Brotherhood secret agents.
Joan Quigley is the author of “Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation’s Capital” and “The Black Woman Who Led the Fight Against Jim Crow – And Why No One Has Ever Heard of Her” featured in TPM’s new longform magazine The Arch. She’ll be stopping by the Hive (sub req) tomorrow to talk more about the topics covered in the piece, from Barack Obama’s inaugural reference in 2009 to his father not being served, Black Lives Matter as a contemporary platform for activist women, and the way that Terrell set a precedent for Rosa Parks.
Joan will be taking questions tomorrow — drop them in now or joing us during the live chat.
It may not seem terribly important right now with all the stories roiling the campaign. But I think there’s a good chance it’s the most important. Over the last 48 hours Trump’s allies, surrogates and now Trump himself have forcibly injected the topic of voter fraud or ‘election rigging’ into the election. Longtime TPM Readers know this topic has probably been the publication’s single greatest and most consistent focus over fifteen years. The subject has been investigated countless times. And it is clear that voter fraud and especially voter impersonation fraud is extremely rare – rare almost to the point of non-existence, though there have been a handful of isolated cases.
Vote fraud is clearly the aim in what is coming from Trump allies. But Trump’s own comment – “I’m afraid the election’s gonna be rigged, I have to be honest” – seems to suggest some broader effort to manufacture votes or falsify numbers, to allude to some broader conspiracy. Regardless, Trump is now pressing this issue to lay the groundwork to discredit and quite possibly resist the outcome of the November election.
In an interview today with a local ABC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, Donald Trump suggested that what angered critic Khizr Khan was Trump’s aggressive efforts to prevent terrorists from entering the country.
“It’s a very big subject for me, border security is very big. When you have radical Islamic terrorists probably all over the place, we’re allowing them to come in by the thousands and thousands. And I think that’s what bothered Mr. Khan more than anything else. And, you know, I’m not going to change my views on that. We have radical Islamic terrorists coming in that have to be stopped. We’re taking them in by the thousands.”
We now have what I believe at least is our first major Republican elected official saying he will vote for Hillary Clinton. Rep Richard Hanna of New York. “I think Trump is a national embarrassment. Is he really the guy you want to have the nuclear codes?” he said in an interview with the local paper.
Candidly, that’s what you do if you’re really ‘Never Trump.’ This is what I was getting at – or rather what I think Obama was getting at – in my write up on President Obama’s speech last week at the DNC. The country’s sense of itself is built on a string of mythic national moments. The McCarthy Era, Watergate. If we’re lucky and Trump is defeated, I believe people will quickly come to look back on it as a McCarthy-era-like near miss. People will be asking, which side were you on? What did you do? Did you stand up?
Joan Quigley is the author of “Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation’s Capital” and “The Black Woman Who Led the Fight Against Jim Crow – And Why No One Has Ever Heard of Her” featured in TPM’s new longform magazine The Arch. She’ll be stopping by the Hive (sub req) today to talk more about the topics covered in the piece, from Barack Obama’s inaugural reference in 2009 to his father not being served, Black Lives Matter as a contemporary platform for activist women, and the way that Terrell set a precedent for Rosa Parks.
Joan will be answering questions at noon — drop them in now or join us during the live chat.
I’d like to take a moment to pull together a series of recent threads on Donald Trump. We’ve now seen another episode of Donald Trump’s impulsive and self-destructive behavior play out in his fight with the Khan family. There was a less noted moment where he apparently didn’t realize that Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula two years ago and has been operating in eastern mainland Ukraine ever since. This brings me back to my early posts drawing concern to Trump’s mix of policy friendliness and financial ties with Russia and especially persons in the orbit of Vladimir Putin. They all flow together in ways that may not at first be clear.
Just for the record please note that yesterday Donald Trump said the Khizr Khan was really mad at him because he’s cracking down on terrorists. Trump’s allies and advisors are claiming that Humayun Khan, Khan’s son who was killed in action in Iraq was an al-Qaida double agent.
I’m excited to announce the debut of our 2016 TPM Electoral Scoreboard. In 2012 the Scoreboard was our most popular tool of the entire election season. The Senate Scoreboard will debut soon. (Click on the image below to go to the Scoreboard page.)
The Scoreboard runs off polling data from PollTracker. And unlike many other predictive maps it runs purely on poll data. It debuts today with Clinton at 271 electoral votes, Trump with 179 and 88 in the Toss-up category.
There’s a lot of chatter this morning – based on absolutely nothing, so far as I can tell – that Donald Trump might drop out of the presidential race. I emphasize: as far as I can tell, chatter based on nothing but what I suspect is wishful thinking on the part of Republicans. At the same time, reporters are quoting high level Republicans sources saying that in the next few days top tier Republicans might come out in opposition to Trump. I will totally believe it when I see it.
But I can’t help but note what seems obvious.