Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist,
and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always,
you can email the show at radio at the Federalist
dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST, make
sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and of
course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today multiple the extraordinary reporters and editors from
the greatest elections reporting team, the Federalist and God ever assembled,
assembled for you on this edition of the Federalist Radio
Hour podcast a special edition, and to share their knowledge
and advice on what to watch on election Day. I
should note we are recording this on Election Eve, and
I am very grateful for the generosity of the time
of this elections team. Being on this elections team, I
know that time is a commodity that none of us has,
and so I very much appreciate all of you being here.
Let's go around the table and introduce the members of
the team. This is not the full survey of the team,
but those who could indeed join us at this time
and I'll begin with our extraordinary editor, el Pernell. Well,
welcome to the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Hey Matt, great to join.
Speaker 3: You.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about what you do and
how you assembled this crack team of reporters from all
over the country.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 4: So, one of the things that we did during, especially
following the twenty twenty election, was covering what went wrong.
Everybody had a sense after twenty twenty that something fishy
had gone down. It wasn't the kind of election that
they expected or that they remembered from previous cycles. But
people had a hard time putting their finger on exactly
what had gone down, what was legit, what was rumor,
And so we covered things from the zuck bucks that
were poured into blue localities of swing states, or the
media suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story, or any untold
number of things, the push for mail and balloting during
COVID and the ways that affected the twenty twenty election.
So we covered that kind of in the aftermath. Our
editor in chief, Molly Hemingway, wrote a great book called
Rigged about It. But then for this election, we wanted
to start on the front end instead of covering it
in the aftermath. So we started assembling our team about
a year ago and added different ones of you guys
throughout the year, and we've been covering not just the campaign,
but election administration, efforts to change election law in swing states.
The fights that are going on in campaign finance are
in ground game with get out on the vote or
voter registration, censorship on social media, and big tech. So
those are some of the things we've been covering this year,
and tomorrow is just the culmination of all that work.
Speaker 1: Ah indeed, and it's been quite a journey. I'm going
to turn to the rest of the members of this
elections team. I want you to state your name for
the record. It's like you're being deposed and who knows
in this business, right, but state your name for the
record and the areas that you have specialized in what
you cover, what you're doing. I'll begin with Brianna. Go ahead, Brianna,
tell us a little bit about what you do.
Speaker 5: Hey, everybody, my name is Brianna Lyman. I cover Georgia
and I've been really fortunate to see how the twenty
twenty election is still impacting this upcoming election. So some
of the big things I've been covering these past few
months is the Georgia State Election Board, which creates rules
and procedures for counties to follow for election administration. We've
seen lawfare being deployed against these members, the three Republican
members who have tried to create rules I would ensure
accuracy and transparency, and like Elle mentioned, we will see
the culmination of the effects in this democratic law fair
this week if Georgia is delaying their results, if there
are issues with counting. So that's something I've been focused
on and it's something I will have my eye out
for starting tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Big state, very very important in this election. Pennsylvania. Breath's
Beth Penncil Breathless, Pennsylvania breath. Yeah, guess that's how busy
she's been interviewed yoursel please?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's Beth Brellia. I've got a funny jay in
my last name, and people always say how do you
pronounce it? So that's how you do it. That's brilliant.
Anyw way, Yeah, I cover Pennsylvania. I've lived in Pennsylvania
for quite a few years, and I've been covering the
state a long time, and I think the neat thing
about this election is we have language that we really
didn't have before.
Speaker 7: We have.
Speaker 6: As citizens become aware that we need to better understand
the machinations behind how all them candidates, of how our
elections run, right, We need to understand that better and
so citizens can have their eyes open more to what's
going on. Pennsylvania, of course, a big battle ground state,
and we feel like iowall right now we're like the
bell of the ball where the presidential candidates are finally
noticing us. You know, we have our primary so late
in the game that we feel kind of unimportant, but
now we're really shining. And one thing I've noticed is
we've got Harris who is of focusing more on the
metropolitan areas, and Trump is going some metro areas, but
also I'm hitting more of the countryside. So it's a
pretty interesting breakdown. We've got nineteen electoral votes here in
Pennsylvania in twenty twenty, Trump lost to Biden by just
eighty one thousand, six hundred some odd votes, so not
a lot. It was a pretty it was a squeaker
and a lot more, a lot more. Even though the
breakdown right now is let me just give you this
breakdown here. We've got three point nine million Democrats three
point seven million Republicans. So that's a difference of two
hundred eighty six thousand voters, right, But the other voters,
there's one point four million voters who have not declared
a party, and they're going to decide. I mean, they
can easily overtake that two hundred and eighty six thousand gap.
Is it going to be for Republicans or Democrats? But
we'll soon find out.
Speaker 1: We're going to get back to you on that because
Pennsylvania at least is one of the states where you
can track what has become extremely important in this election,
a real change for Republicans, and that is voting early,
absentee ballots, getting out those voters to vote early so
you don't have to depend on everything on a very
long and arduous election day, election night, and into the
upcoming days. Reck and tell us a little bit about
what you're covering, what you're seeing. You have a very
interesting state that had suffered through an awful, harrowing disaster,
and that of course is North Carolina.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's right, and I think that Helene primarily and
the state Board of Election and local boards which are
all across the entire state run by Democrats, because that's
the way they do it in North Carolina is.
Speaker 7: Going to be kind of the.
Speaker 8: Foundation through which North Carolina's election tomorrow is going to
go in my opinion, you know, just to get some
numbers out of the way. In twenty twenty, Biden lost
the state by about seventy five thousand votes. In twenty sixteen,
Trump won the state by about one hundred thousand us
So that means that it's been trending away from Republicans
winning and Helene.
Speaker 7: We don't know what that's going to look like.
Speaker 8: We know that that's probably increased a lot of absentee
voting in the state that would otherwise happen. We also,
as I've reported, the Democrat run local elections boards have been,
you know, making it harder for people to get to
the polls out in the western counties over there, which
had had to be resolved by the state legislature, forcing
them to do something about opening up emergency polling locations
and things like that. But as we sit today, fifty
seven percent of the state has already voted. Again that
those western counties affected by Helene are the Republicans stronghold
in the state and that carried over a quarter of
a million net votes for Trump last time around, and
they're the ones who are finding it harder to get
to the polls. And again the trend is going more
and more purple to blue in the state. The governor
is a Democrat. You've got a Democrat who is likely
to win on the for governor again because of scandal
that's happening in the states, so that the tickets is
interesting for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes it is. And if we only had more
time to go into the scandal that is surrounding the
GOP candidate. Listen, there's much more to get to. I
should say. I introduced him as Breckon. He's not like
the artist formerly known as or you know, the Madonna
of election coverage. He is Breckon Thieves. He also covers Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is just that big. We need all hands on
deck to cover that important state because, as it's been expressed,
you can win without Pennsylvania, but you better not try.
Just the way the electoral map is going. We have
an excellent editor on our elections team as well, who
cleans up all of our messes, or at least helps
to do that. Along with L and others. But Mazie Jefferson, Mazie,
what have you seen in terms of the coverage coming
through and as you followed this, what scares you the
most about Election twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Matt, And it's great to be
with everyone here today in the elections team as an
editor over the summer and have been working alongside L
and this wonderful team, reading all of their wonderful investigative
work and sending story tips their way, fact checking, and
like you said, making sure the eyes are dotted and
the teaser crossed, so to speak, before this much needed
information goes out to readers and voters. I think something
that scares me the most going into election day is
just I've learned so much from all of you guys
about the just about the election process and how especially
in swing state's, elections really are so much more than
just the campaign stories but often skewed campaign stories that
the legacy media is putting in front of voters and
in front of readers leading up to the election. And
so I'm really thankful for all the work you guys
have done and that I've gotten to be a part
of about getting the real story to readers and bringing
that important reporting about election administration and litigation that often
gets lost in the weeds where voters just don't have
that information or a reliable version of that information. And
I think that ignorance that a lot of voters have
had in the past about what really goes on in
elections is a scary thought. But we're pushing back.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, that's a great point. I want to
expound upon that with l in just a moment. But
let me add for those just tuning in to the
Federalist Radio our podcast, I've often talked about Wisconsin, where
I come from, the state that I've covered extensively over
the years, investigated the zuck Bucks back in twenty twenty
and all of the shenanigans that were pulled in what
Molly hamming Way, our editor in chief, has talked about
as a rigged election for so many reasons, and not
necessarily the reasons that have been uttered or given by some,
but because of what we have seen in terms of
the machinations involving big tech and accomplice corporate media, the
propaganda media. NOL. Let me ask you this, as you've
led this team, how much has Mazie noted how much
have corporate media players played in this election in terms
of absolute interference in how the election and the administration
of this election is presented?
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, well, I mean, we've got an example as
recent as Saturday with NBC providing what ended up being
basically a campaign contribution to the Harris campaign by having
Harris on Saturday Night Live in what was an obvious
evasion of the equal time requirement. And then they had
to let Donald Trump do a free ad on Sunday afternoon.
So yeah, I mean, that's just the most recent example
we had. The ridiculous was it? On Friday? Donald Trump
said he suggested that Liz Cheney should try fighting her
own foreign forever wars that she sends Americans to fight in,
she should try it herself sometime, And the media just
went into overdrive with this hoax that Donald Trump had
called for Liz Cheney to be executed by firing squad.
And it was so obvious that it was a lie
and it was a hoax, and like no one that
was saying it could actually believe it because it was
so stupid. But you've got all kinds of stuff like
that happening every week of this campaign cycle. You had
when Harris went on CBS, I think it was sixteen minutes,
they released part of her interview and in like a
preview clip, and her answer for one question was a
total word salad. It made no sense, it was mocked mercilessly.
And so after that feedback, when they released what was
supposedly the full interview the next day, that answer was
completely missing and they had edited in some totally different, slightly.
Speaker 2: Less bad answer. So those are just.
Speaker 4: Examples of what the corporate media is doing and ways
that they've run interference for the Harris campaign.
Speaker 2: That's not really new.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty, they did the same thing with deciding
not to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and how
that scandal implicated President Joe Biden. In twenty sixteen, they
ran the russiacclusion hoax about Donald Trump. So this isn't
anything new. But I think what is changed is.
Speaker 2: Perhaps that people don't.
Speaker 4: Buy the hoaxes as much anymore. Like the life cycle
of these hoaxes has shrunk so quickly from like what
five years of Russia Russia Russia to now like these
things people know that they're they're ridiculous and they stop
buying them within like twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: But is anybody being held accountable for this stuff? I mean,
it's it's taken years. And you're right, the life cycle
of these things is relatively short compared to where they
used to be. But it's taken years for the Washington Post,
even if they acknowledge it at all, with the New
York Times or CNN to say, oh, you know what
we were wrong about the whole Russian collusion thing. Oh,
it turns out that Democrats were buying this Russian portfolio,
this you know, operative information, you know, and we've seen
so many myriad examples of this going along in two
thousand and twenty four. It's not like, you know that
we have seen anybody learning from there. I remember in
sixteen we had the Mia Kulpa coming from the Washington Post,
you know, and the Ams Budsman saying, oh, you know,
we have to do better at recognizing there are other
voters not and we should pay attention to the fact
that they care about elections too, other than the people
that we are constantly addressing, you know, the whole elitist
movement that's gone on in this country for such a
long time. What is interesting, though, all about this election,
I think is how many different news sources have come
up to fill in the gaps as people leave the
Washington Post, as they leave CNN, the New York Times
and these other networks. I mean, how big was the
Joe Rogan interview in this election, for instance?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was huge.
Speaker 4: It had gotten like millions of views in the first
couple hours, and now it's at like tens of millions
of views at least. So I think, I think to
what you were saying a minute ago, I do think
that the corporate media have kind of realized that their
reputation is in tatters and this is an existential election
for them. I think it was some TV executive said
if was it in a political article Axios maybe recently.
He was like, oh, if Donald Trump wins, like that
means that our industry is dead as we know it,
because that means people just start listening to us anymore.
So I think, I mean he's saying it. The best
way for these media outlets to learn their lesson, it's
for Donald Trump to win tomorrow. But yeah, it was
amazing that so Joe Rogan had also an extended invitation
to Kamala Harris to come on his show at the
same time that he offered a spot to Donald Trump
on his show, and the campaign like they wanted him
to come to her instead of her flying down to Texas, right,
And he wanted to cut it to an hour, and
they wanted to make certain topics off limits. And Rogan
was like, well, no, that's not how I do my show.
I'd love to have you on, but you have to do.
Speaker 2: It my way.
Speaker 4: It was just amazing that this podcast host, this guy
has more leverage power than the Vice president of the
United States. I think that speaks really strongly to where
we're at in the media landscape.
Speaker 1: And on that point, I've heard a lot of conservatives
say this over and over again. Thank God for Elon
musk X has absolutely changed. Well, think about it. I
think about twenty twenty, Think about who ran Twitter, Think
about what they were doing at Twitter. We know the
congressional investigations, what went down with all of the real
collusion that went out on out there between the deep
State and between the big tech giants out there. I'm
going to get to election administruation and Rihanna Elections are
messy in general, certainly can be. Was there any election
messier than twenty twenty in Fulton County? How far has
Georgia come from that disastrous period of time in twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, I don't think they've come far enough. Back in May,
the State Election Board they came to an agreement that
acknowledged that Fulton County in twenty twenty double scanned more
than three thousand ballots. There are still actually missing ballot images.
All of these problems culminated in a letter of reprimand
to Fulton County, and Fulton County actually had issues in
their previous election cycles between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four.
So you would think it'd be incumbent upon not only
the county but the state to figure out a way
to ensure that this go around there would be no hiccups.
And the State Election Board has worked very diligently to
ensure that the issues we saw in twenty twenty wouldn't
be replicated. So one of the things they were doing
was passing approving rules that, for instance, said you have
to make sure that the hand count matches the machine count. Right,
it's reconciliation you're basically making sure that the number of
votes count it matches the number of physical ballots that
were handed in very basic processes. And like I mentioned earlier,
Democrats immediately jumped to law fare to shoot these roles down.
And the only reason you would want to shoot a
rule as basic as reconciliation down is if there's something
the ferry is going on, because otherwise, this was a
rule that ensures accuracy and transparency. And Fulton County, one
of the I'll call it a remedy is that they
would have a monitoring team. Except the monitoring team who's
supposed to be overseeing Fulton County doesn't want to provide
any information on what it's been doing these past few weeks.
I've inquired with them several times. I've inquired with members
of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, and
it's relatively mump. And that's concerning because if they were
not able to acknowledge and rectify the issues of twenty twenty,
it's almost infeasible to see how they'd be able to
ensure that those don't happen again tomorrow. So you know,
Fulton County, I think will be at the center of
Georgia once again, because there were issues in twenty twenty
that were not addressed properly, because there were issues in
twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three. So you know,
I do think Georgia is going to be once again
at the center of the election entirely, and Fulton County
will be that pinpoint.
Speaker 1: Is it any wonder that so many Americans are concerned
about our elections, the integrity of our elections, I mean,
and that Branda Georgia just just refuses to And then
you have people who campaign Republicans who are campaigning on,
you know, being tough on election integrity and how many
times have they been rolled over in Georgia and let's
face it, other swing states and states across this country.
But you've covered that extensively.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And one of the reasons that people like you
say roll over is because there's such a large cohort
in the media.
Speaker 2: And I'll you know, really spoke to this.
Speaker 5: But the way that the propaganda press has been working
for months is that one of the issues in Georgia
and in Fulton County has been, well, we don't want
to certify an election if we don't have the accurate
data to ensure that the election was conducted and administered.
Speaker 2: Properly, very fair.
Speaker 5: You know, people are signing their names, and the mainstream
media has just gone on this tyrate of this rampage saying, well,
if you don't certify, you know your threat to democracy,
and certification is ministerial, meaning you just have to rubber
stamp it, rather than discretionary, which would be, oh, there's
an irregularity, let's not certify until we figure out what
went wrong. And Georgia election officials, who voters should rightfully
be able to trust to take steps needed to ensure
accuracy have kind of jumped on the media's bandwagon saying no, yeah,
a certification is ministerial.
Speaker 2: People who don't think so, you know.
Speaker 5: They're threatening to disrupt the electoral process. And so you're
seeing people Republicans and Republican states who are actually acting
more like Democrats in a lot of cases because they
don't care about election integrity and security the same way
these on the ground grassroot activists do day in and
day out and are working to simply ensure that every
legal vote that is cast counts and every vote that
is not legal doesn't count.
Speaker 9: Our guest today is the left keeps preaching for a
quality of kamala Is elected, but is this a dystopian America?
The Watchdout on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski. Every
day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the
economy and how it.
Speaker 1: Affects your wallet.
Speaker 10: The idea that we're all supposed to end up in
the exact same place, even after working much harder than
they are. That's like a dystopian Kurt Vonnegut novel. Whether
it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's
affecting you financially.
Speaker 1: Be informed.
Speaker 9: Check out the Watchout on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Our guests today several members of the Federalist Elections Team.
I am very proud to be part of this team
that has done extensive, exhaustive work over the LEF last
year and getting this kind of information that you're hearing about.
People with deep sources can connect you with the information
that you absolutely should have, expect to have, must have
as we enter a critical election. Beth, I'm want to
turn to you. You were just covering in a very
important part of Pennsylvania a visit by former President Donald Trump,
the GOP's presidential nominee. It was in Pennsylvania that we
had the shocking moment, the stunning moment of a near
assassination of the former president and the GOP presidential candidate.
What's the feeling on the ground from Pennsylvania that I
know that rippled through the GOP convention just days after
that event, I was there in Milwaukee covering it. I
can only imagine what it must be like in Pennsylvania
where it happened.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, it's a big state, and Butler is Uh,
where the shooting, the attempted assassination happened, is close to Pittsburgh,
and the further east you go, the less we feel
like one state. There's different personalities in every corner. You know,
we're we're almost Texas sized, so we're pretty big. But
but yeah, people are obviously a lot of the political
people in the state attended the Trump rally because they
want to be heard, like Dave McCormick and the heads
of the r n C, and a lot of them
were present in the row is not far from Uh
where the people were actually shot. Some even had blood
on them, and so I remember that we were on
the phone with some of the people who are still
on the ground. There was a lot of chaos and
trying to figure out what had happened at that moment.
But since then you would think, you know, the state
police was really involved, and it's still involved in the
ongoing investigation into what happened in Butler, and so it's
really odd. Just yesterday Trump was in Lancaster for another rally.
It's weird. Trump has been in Lancaster twice within the
last two weeks filling rallies, and then Elon Musk was
here in between that time. So they're really focusing on
this area and our surrounding counties. But he had a
podium that had glass on three sides of it. And
I'm not talking total glass, like he had glass in
front of him, you know, really thick glass. You don't
know until he a seat in person think it is.
And then a huge gap and then glass on his
right side and glass behind him gaps all around, but
his left side totally exposed to He was at the
Lancaster Airport, which is a very small airport. It doesn't
handle full sized gents there.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to interrupt it. How is that allowed to happen?
Haven't we had enough of US secret service debacles at
this point? I mean, we talk about the Butler incident.
Of course, that was extraordinary. It's not too much longer.
Later at Trump's golf course, we have a guy hanging
out in the shrubbery. For god's sake. What is going on?
Speaker 6: Well, you take the golf course incident, which is like
big open field, right and with a little bit of groundcover,
and then you take the Butler incident, which is rooftops.
And this was a conversation in the line I went
on with general public because I had a camera. I
got kicked out of general public and they put me
back in the media pen where we're stuck and can't
talk to the public. But I waited for hours in
line with the general public. And the chattering line was, well,
are they going to put some on the roofs because
there's you know, this is a pretty open place around here.
And indeed the open side of the of his stage
was next to this open field, the airfield and farms beyond,
and then he kind of he was talking about it.
There there were sharpshooters on top of one of the hangars.
I only saw two of them, but they were on
the side where the glass was, but on the side
that was totally exposed, was wide open and somebody could
be there, So he didn't. He made some comments on that,
of course. He you know, the media, I will say,
when you're a reporter and you go to a lot
of political stump speeches, which is really not where the
media should be covering the news. We should be doing
more of the election integrity stuff that we're doing here
at the Federalist because a stump speech is going to
be the same thing with a new audience every time,
so reporters don't have much fresh to say, and they're
really there looking for that one thing that's different. Well,
the one thing different he said, was Hey, what's up
with my glass? You know, I know it doesn't I
don't look so good on TV through this glass. And
he kind of wishes the glass wasn't in front of
him on TV. And he said, I've got this big
open space here and there's a big field, but there's
the media in front of me, and it's a big
you know, a whole bunch of risers right, So it's
tall and there's a bunch of people on it. He said,
you know, if someone wanted to get me, they'd have
to shoot through the media first. And then he says
in the way Trump would say, I don't mind that
so much, and everybody laughed. Well, then the media's like, hey,
wants to kill us, you know, And that's been the
news now today.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's that's how it goes. And you know,
let's face it, the way that the corporate media has
covered this. You know, I'm going to say, I wouldn't
be entirely surprised with all of their narratives about the
next Hitler and fascist and all of that sort of
thing if the you know, the attempt doesn't come from
the media section there. I said it put it out there. Reckon.
You have covered not only Pennsylvania and North Carolina, but Virginia,
and I want to shift into I think one of
the biggest issues of this election that the accomplice media
has absolutely tried to downplay at every turn, and that's
non citizens on voter registrations. Virginia played a pretty significant
part in that. In fact, the state found itself in
a legal battle now being targeted by the epinized Department
of Justice in the Biden Harris administration. What's the situation there,
and if you could speak, you know, generally to this
because we have seen, as we've reported at the Federalists,
thousands upon thousands of non citizens, foreign nationals on our
voter rolls. That speaks to a real problem in election integrity.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 8: I mean, the current situation is that the US Supreme
Court allowed Virginia to remove somewhere around fifteen hundred non
citizen people who are on the voter rolls.
Speaker 7: And they're non.
Speaker 8: Citizen by self identifying as non citizen, by the way,
I think, which is an important distinction, because they were asked,
they said they weren't, and they were added to the
voter roles. Anyway, that that has been an issue, and
I wrote a piece on this for a long time
in Virginia and I think in a lot of other
states too, where the kind of departments, whether it's Department
of Elections or the Secretary of State's office or whoever
it is, has sort of been complicit in allowing these
people to get on the voter rolls. And some of
it has to do with being a member of this organization, Eric,
some states have left, but basically they're like, if you
are a member of our voter role cleanup organization, then
you have to solicit not people who I've identified as
non citizens to be able to vote, like you know,
in case they have changed their citizens ship status and
become citizens, is what they say.
Speaker 7: But oftentimes this means that you're just kind of.
Speaker 8: Automatically enrolling thousands upon thousands of non citizens to be
able to vote. In Virginia, they did have the legal battle.
It lost in the Youngin administration. You tried to remove
these non citizens, lost at the district and appellate levels.
Speaker 4: But then the US I reckon, I just want to
can I just cinder for you real quick? It was
the Biden Harris Department of Justice that decided to pick
this fight to begin with.
Speaker 2: This is something with Virginia has.
Speaker 4: Done for years, like this program is signed off by
a Democrat governor, but this was a fight that the
Biden Harris DOJ decided to pick right before election day.
Speaker 11: This is Mollie Hemingway encouraging you to listen to my
favorite podcast, Issues, et cetera. Every day you get in
depth interviews with host Todd Wilkin, asking expert guests substantive,
thought provoking questions on all of the important news and
issues of our day. The expert guests are in culture, law, ethics, philosophy, theology,
and apologetics. Expert guests expansive topics, always extolling christ issues,
et cetera.
Speaker 1: And not just in Virginia. I'll add this was also
their fight that they chose to pick in Alabama, and
I think it reckon. It speaks to a bigger point.
I wanted to ask you about that. We've seen the
Save Act, you know, a legislation in the House of Representatives.
All that it would have required was that you provide
documentation that you are a US citizen as you go
to register to vote, basic voter integrity. The Democrats fought
that the Senate, the Democrat controlled Senate refused to take
it up. After Republicans passed it, Joe Biden threatened to
veto it. We have our states. We have covered myriad
stories about leftist lawfare going on to stop any attempt
at trying to have this kind of election integrity where
you can check whether non citizens are on the voter rules.
Why do you why do you think that is from
from the left, from from the Democrats.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, I mean that is one of the most
bizarre things that you could you could possibly think of,
and it's I think a Supreme Court case back in
twenty thirteen said you couldn't ask people for citizenship status
to vote in federal elections, but maybe you could in
local elections or something. That's where Arizona is somewhere in there.
But so it seems unthinkable that you'd be able, you
would not be able to verify that someone's a citizen
in the country in order to be able or even
the state for that matter, to be able to to
register to vote. I've been told by people in Virginia,
like you know, local Republican Party representatives and things like that,
that they just fundamentally think that people like the Biden
Harrison administration Democrats generally want illegals to be able to
vote in our elections and they don't want any kind
of accountability for that whatsoever. And in a place like Virginia,
which has been trending blue, but they are a little
worried about it. I mean, we brought up Saturday Night
Live earlier, you know, they had Tim Kaine on the
senator from Virginia used up for reelection as well, because
they were worried about I think they were worried about
Virginia being closer than they thought it was going to
be for Harris and for Caine's election. The Democrats seem
to be wanting to grab onto as many sort of
untrackable illegal votes that kind of can't be challenged because
you know, there's not a lot of ton of data
out there to do it as possible, and so, you know,
any kind of voter roll cleanup, and they've always been
against that because I mean, that's how you get you know,
the longgoing joke is that you know, once people die,
they all start becoming Democrats because that's, you know, because
they they do not want voter roal cleanup. And it's
because you know, they want as many people they think
you've seen it in Washington, d C. Neighbor of Virginia,
Eagles can actually vote in DC, and they can vote
in a couple of other cities across.
Speaker 1: The eustry as well in local elections.
Speaker 8: But of course this is how the trend is going,
and they're trying to shoehorn in all these people and
they say, Oh, it's suppression, or it's you know, you're
scaring people to know. These people don't have the right
to vote, they're not citizens in the country.
Speaker 1: So I think and I wish the Trump campaign toward
the final hours of the election would shift to this
campaign slogan, make SNL funny again. That would be a
great benefit for all of us. Mazie, you have seen
a lot of election stories come in over the last
several months, probably more than you expected or wanted. But
here they keep coming because it's such a broad and
necessary field of coverage. What has what is intrigued you
most about the store that have defined this election cycle?
Speaker 3: That's good question.
Speaker 6: I think.
Speaker 3: I think just how willing the media is to cherry
pick and push back on what's actually happening, you know,
thinking of the Liz Chainey comments that Elle mentioned, or
the piece that Beth wrote about how the media was
more concerned about Trump's assassination joke than they were ever
actually concerned about the attempt on his life. Is you know,
so suppressing the stories that actually matter. The fact that
violent rhetoric that encourages violence, perpetuated by the media, you know,
leads to assassination attempts and the justification of violence, the
fact that that's pushed aside, but we're willing to spend
pages and pages talking about out of context comments that
are basically leading voters to believe that something that never
happened or that we've never said is actually happening. And
I'm just I'm so surprised by how willing the media
especially are too unabashedly push an agenda. It's just it's
working for the federalists, where you know, we're fact checking,
we're putting out the most accurate and real versions of
the stories of what's actually happening. I just can't believe
how willing these surrogates are to put out non truths
and incomplete truths to push people to their side.
Speaker 1: That is that is a great point. And I don't know,
I have a feeling how you feel about all of this,
all of you. But you know, I've been in this
business longer than I like to acknowledge. In fact, I
go to support groups and I walk in and I
say hello, my name is Matt. I'm a journalist, so
I'm Att. Yeah, we understand. I have been ashamed of
this business. I've been proud of particular reporters rebelling and
pushing back against this business and what it has done
to reporters, particularly young reporters out there. But I am
I'm ashamed at what this has become in this country.
And I think there was a real dynamic shift that
took place after Barack Obama was elected. And we don't
have time to delve into all that happened. And I understand,
you know, you can go back and you can take
a look at, you know, the the movement that happened
post Clinton and George W. Bush and move on dot
org and all of that stuff. But things really changed
in journalism, I think within late in the first term
of Barack Obama, but it has really there are so
many instances of malpractice in journalism in this election cycle
alone that has really made me in so many ways
to feel ashamed of being part of this business. That's
why I'm very proud that there are news organizations still
alive and well. Like the Federalists, I'm going to go
around the table with the reporters. We just have a
few minutes left. But Rihanna, I want to ask you first,
what do you expect out of Georgia tomorrow. What do
you expect in terms of election day? Where do we
go from here?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a load of question for Georgia. I expect
that we will see Fulton obviously be the biggest county
of contention, mainly because they have a monitoring team monitoring them.
There's a lot of issues going on. I do think
some other counties we should keep an eye on would
be to Cobb and Cobb County.
Speaker 2: I think those are going to be the three.
Speaker 5: And I do hope that they can get their act
together and we can get close to results. If they're
not going to deliver results to us as they should,
are we going to have.
Speaker 1: The same experience that we had in Fulton County in
twenty twenty Lights go out or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 2: Matt, I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 5: I am not counting anything out, and I think given
the current administration and people in charge.
Speaker 2: I think it's a very good possibility.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Beth, what about Pennsylvania. What are you hearing and
what do you expect out of election Day twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6: Well, the Department of State in Pennsylvania wants you to
know that you shouldn't expect election results out of this
major battleground state tomorrow. That's just something we used to
be able to do. Yeah, but I did hear today,
right before this little chat that we're having here, might
have results by Wednesday afternoon. That's a new target, because
I had been hearing it could be like a week
or more. So Wednesday afternoon almost sounds acceptable, except I'm
having a hard time swallowing that we wouldn't have election
results night of I'm just so accustomed to that. It is.
You know, I can't predict who's going to win at
this point. There's a lot of momentum in the early voting,
which Pennsylvania doesn't actually have early voting, but something very
similar to early voting. A lot of Republicans took advantage
of that. But if you look at the state statistics,
more Democrats than Republicans have actually turned in mail in
ballots at this point. So although Republicans for the first
time have embraced this mail and voting, they still don't
have as many as the Democrats. So when those are opened,
that'll be very interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to meet the Democrats where they live.
That's been the message from the GOP. We've been covering
that of course throughout the year, how successful have they
been and delivering those earlier absentee ballots. As we transition
into fall and our schedules get busier, tighter work deadlines
as we approach the end of the year or the
start of holiday preparations, it's easy to forget about taking
care of ourselves during this busy season. One simple but
effective thing you can do for yourself start taking Nutrifol.
Neutrafil is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement
brand trusted by over one million people. See thicker, stronger,
faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to
six months with nutriphil. Thinning hair is different for men
and women, so a one size fits all approach to
hair growth doesn't cut it. Neutrofol has multiple formulas for
men and women that are tailored to different life stages
and lifestyle factors, so you can get just what you
need get results you can run your fingers through. For
a limited time, Neutrifol is offering our listeners ten dollars
off your first month subscription and free shipping when you
go to nutrofol dot com and enter the promo code Federalist.
Find out why over forty five hundred healthcare professionals and
stylists recommend nutraple for healthier hair. Neutrofol dot com spelled
nut r afol dot com promo code Federalist. That's neutrifol
dot com promo code Federalist. Reckon. What about North Carolina?
You know, we talked about it earlier on in the podcast,
but this is an area that was absolutely smacked around
by Hurricane Helene, and there are all kinds of concerns
and issues that they might not be able to get
all the ballots out and return by people in these
affected areas. How does North Carolina look going into election day?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think I think it's it's that issue, the
Helene issue, and then and then one other issue that
I'll get to momentarily that are going to kind of
be the two things I'm watching tomorrow. And with with Helene,
I mean, they have done some things, They've gotten a
lot of early voting potential out, They've they've done some
emergency voting locations because some of those locations, many of
them actually were destroyed by the hurricane.
Speaker 7: And and really.
Speaker 8: But since then, I mean, you know, it's it's been
a bit of a black kind of box there about
what really looks like on the ground in western North Carolina.
And you know, it will be something that I think
we're just going to have to see in the returns
to see if those those places, the sort of a
percentage of people participating in voting.
Speaker 7: There have been affected. I know that.
Speaker 8: I think in twenty sixteen, I want to say, maybe
it was twenty twenty, I can't remember. There was another
hurricane that hit North Carolina, although it was the East Coast,
which is more used to hurricanes, and it affected their
overall vote by something like one percent. But that's significant
in the state that's going to be as close as
North Carolina. Seems like it's going to be the other
thing off flag. We don't have time to explain exactly
what yuokava is, but I just want to get it
in there. And we have written extensively on it about this,
but I think this is a particular issue in North
Carolina because North Carolina has some of the most wax
laws in the country on yokava.
Speaker 1: And you say yokava, we know these terms. We write
about it, all right, Yes.
Speaker 8: Yes, Yeah, that's uniformed and overseas voters, So think military
and state department people primarily. Although it is in favor,
most of those people are state department not military, which
is an important distinction as well because those people tend
to vote Democrat.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 8: The reason I bring this up though, is because in
North Carolina there is no excuse absentee voting for a
long period of time, I think the longest in the country,
and there are still over two hundred thousand outstanding absentee
votes and they don't let you know which ones are Yuokava.
Yokava has another issue in North Carolina, where there are
almost no security measures. You can vote by email, you
can vote by facts. You know, there's there's votes coming
in from you know, Yahoo dot com email accounts that
are apparently Yokava as we speak with that many out
two hundred thousand outstanding votes. Again, the margin was seventy
five thousand last time around. You know, it's gonna be
it's good, it's gonna be tough to know how many
of those are going to come into Yokaba. They can
get certified ten days after election day, so unless it's
a big, a big.
Speaker 7: You know, victory one way or the other. In North
carol there's.
Speaker 8: The possibility that, oh they a bunch of ten thousand
KAVA votes come in from all across the world and
start flipping some seats at the state, local, and federal levels.
Speaker 1: Very worrisome. That's something that the Federalist has been tracking
and I was remiss and not bring it up, and
thank thank you for doing so, b Reckon, because that's
critical in North Carolina, it's critical in Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania,
wherever you go. Uokava is an issue at some level.
Mazie editors are the last to go to bed on
election night. How do you how do you see election
night going?
Speaker 2: You know, late.
Speaker 3: Late night for sure. But we have a great team
to be keeping track of all the details. It'll be
a lot of cross checking, you know, what what are
what are outlets recording? What what are sources saying is happening?
So lots of information coming from different directions. But we've
set ourselves up super well. We know what to be
looking for. And yeah, it may not be we don't
know whether it'll be smooth or Yeah, it's hard to
know what to expect at this point. But we have
definitely set ourselves up well to be able to tackle
whatever comes our way.
Speaker 1: I told my old Nashville radio pal on a segment
this morning, I said, well, if you're covering election night,
make sure you bring a toothbrush and your jammy's. This
could go late. Well, you have assembled a tremendous team.
And I'm not saying that simply because I'm on it
rather immodest as I put it this way, but you
get the last word. What are you expecting when when
the rubber hits the road election day?
Speaker 4: Oh well, so even before the results come in, I'm
expecting Democrats and the media, which are not that different
at this point, to pull out every trick in the
book to muddle whatever's going on. So you know, whether
that's taking something that maybe is a true and concerning
report about something going on at a polling site and.
Speaker 2: Fact you know, slapping it with a fact check.
Speaker 4: You know, nothing to see here, or whether that's using
exit polls which are notoriously unreliable to uh depress Republican turnout,
or you know, get those last couple of Harris voters
to the polls, or whatever it may be. Whether it's
you know, playing tricks with with when they call which
states and for whom. And I think we've seen, as
Beth alluded to, so much of an information op to
prepare people not to get results on election night, which,
as you know, everybody who's ever followed an election in
America previous to twenty twenty knows that is the norm.
And so I think the media is not done playing games.
They've played games every day this week. They've been playing
games with this election ever since. They you know, covered
for Biden, remember him, Like remember when he was running
for president, covered for him and then.
Speaker 1: Decided we didn't see him, that's for sure, in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep, yeah, So I mean they covered for him
in twenty twenty, and then they continued to cover for
him as he supposedly ran the country and supposedly was
running for president in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: And then when.
Speaker 4: Biden got ousted from the race, the media suddenly propped
up this this brat campaign for Kamala Harris, who up
until you know, five minutes before that, they had been
describing as unpopular and you know, recognizing the fact that
nobody liked her.
Speaker 2: So the media's.
Speaker 4: Been playing tricks up until now. They're not going to
stop just because we have like thirty hours to go,
So I expect plenty more of that from them between
now and then.
Speaker 1: Final question for you, and it is do you believe
Donald Trump will be the next Grover Cleveland, the twenty
first century Grover Cleveland? And if he should be, if
he should win this election, when when are you calling
the left the Democrats to come out with complaints that
the election was rigged, the election was stolen.
Speaker 4: Election denial is going to be cool again.
Speaker 1: Matt, Yes, you know, but hey, election denial was cool
a long time ago in this rig system. But do
you believe Trump can pull this off? And if he does,
what happens?
Speaker 4: I mean, he's in a better position than he has
been in either of the past two elections.
Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton was still up in the polls.
Speaker 4: I mean, the media was telling everybody that Trump had
no chance in twenty sixteen, and then obviously he pulled
off an upset there. Even in twenty twenty he lost
by tens of thousands of votes across the three swing states.
Was the difference between him losing and winning that election?
It was much much closer. I think the polls had
Biden ahead like eight points at this point in the
race in twenty twenty, so he's historically overperformed.
Speaker 2: Where he's at right.
Speaker 4: Now, it's a dead heat, which is a better position
than he's ever been in before. I think he has
the majority of the issues in this race, the border,
the economy, inflation in his favor. Obviously, he's got the
entire media industrial complex against.
Speaker 2: Him, but I think he's.
Speaker 4: Got as good of a shot as he ever had before.
Speaker 2: So for him, like that good news.
Speaker 1: Well, they have attacked him. They have impeached him, they
have indicted him, they have arrested him, they've investigated him,
they've put him before a mug shot camera. They tried
to kick him off of ballots. They tried to shoot him.
They did shoot him. They tried to kill him. Donald
Trump is still here. We'll see what happens at the
end of the day, whenever that day ends on election day.
Until then, I want to thank our extraordinary panelist here.
Thank you Saul so much for being here. El Pernell
is the editor of this selections team you've been hearing
from this hour, and of course the others involved as well.
Beth Umbrelia who is an exceptional reporter covering Pennsylvania. Another
exceptional reporter is Reckon Thieves covering Pennsylvania and the North
Carolina Virginia. All of these folks, of course, cover everything
across the country. Brianna Lyman does excellent work covering Georgia
and elsewhere. I should mention our great reporters covering Arizona, Nevada,
that Sean Fleetwood and Logan Washburn covering critical battleground state Michigan.
And Mazie Jefferson tremendous editor. She has seen it all
certainly over these last several months. Again, thanks to all
of the great work of the Federalist Election team, you
have been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, senior correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be
back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom
and anxious for the Fray