Democratic group launches legal fund to help secretaries of state defend against postelection lawsuits
A Democratic group is launching a legal fund to help secretaries of state in key states defend against an anticipated post-election deluge of lawsuits.
In plans shared first with NBC News, the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State plans to spend at $5 million to support top election officials in Maine, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada. Officials with the group said they may expand their reach to other states as needed and could spend more if fundraising is strong.
The group began aggressively raising money and campaigning to elect Democratic secretaries of state, who oversee elections in many states, in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in 2020. It first funneled money to deal with postelection litigation to then-Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in 2022 to deal with postelection litigation.
“This is us trying to help our people but also help democracy,” said Travis Brimm, the group’s executive director.
“We have a bunch of pro-democracy secretaries of state that we want to support. We know a lot of them are going to get sued. We know that there’s going to be a lot of challenges to election certification issues, and we know that those are expensive endeavors,” he said.
House poised to pass a bill to avert a shutdown after dropping Trump voting plan
The House on Wednesday is poised to pass a funding bill to avert a government shutdown next week after it removed a proposal demanded by Donald Trump that would require Americans nationwide to show proof of citizenship to register to vote.
House Republican leaders, facing defections within their ranks, plan to rely heavily on Democratic votes to approve the measure. If it passes, it would go to the Senate, which hopes to quickly approve it Wednesday night, well before the Oct. 1 shutdown deadline. Both chambers are set to adjourn this week for a lengthy recess until after the Nov. 5 election.
The package, negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and top Democrats, would fund the government at current levels through Dec. 20, right before the holidays. It would also provide $231 million in additional money for the Secret Service, including for operations related to the presidential campaign, in the wake of two apparent attempts to assassinate Trump.
Bipartisan report on Trump shooting identifies Secret Service tech issues and ‘preventable’ mistakes
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The Secret Service made a series of “foreseeable” and “preventable” mistakes in the lead-up to the first attempt to assassinate Trump in July that allowed a gunman to fire shots that killed a Trump rally attendee and grazed the Republican presidential nominee’s ear, senators in both parties charge.
The Senate Homeland Security Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a joint interim report in their investigation of the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting Wednesday that responsibilities weren’t clearly defined ahead of the July 13 rally and that personnel they interviewed who were responsible for planning have “deflected blame.”
While the Secret Service has acknowledged “ultimate responsibility” for the failure to prevent Trump’s being struck by a bullet, the report says key Secret Service personnel “declined to acknowledge individual areas of responsibility for planning or security as having contributed to the failure to prevent the shooting that day.”
The report also highlights the types of technological issues that are common within massive federal bureaucracies like the Secret Service.
Elise Stefanik pushes to expand House GOP majority with record number of women
Rep. Elise Stefanik, the highest-ranking GOP woman in the House, is leading a charge to break the record for Republican women serving in the chamber, just six years after a blue wave wiped out their ranks.
Stefanik, R-N.Y., who chairs the GOP conference, has been focused on boosting the ranks of Republican women in the House ever since she sounded the alarm about the “crisis level” after the 2018 midterms, when the number of GOP women dwindled to just 13.
In the nearly six years since then, Stefanik and others have worked to recruit and provide early support to women candidates. The number of Republican women in the House has tripled to a record 36, including two nonvoting members.
This time, any gains could help the GOP grow from its current narrow majority, which has been plagued by disagreement and infighting, to a more robust governing majority next year.
NBC News Correspondents Vaughn Hillyard and Aaron Gilchrist join Meet the Press NOW to report on the latest from the campaign trail as Trump and Harris try to reach voters in battleground Georgia.
Harris to join Stephanie Ruhle for an exclusive interview in Pittsburgh
Harris will join MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle in Pittsburgh, Penn. for an exclusive one-on-one interview after a campaign stop outlining her plans for the economy. The interview, Harris’ first solo exclusive interview since becoming the nominee, will air Sept. 25 at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC during a special two-hour edition of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
Harris to flesh out her economic vision in Pittsburgh, pitching ‘pragmatic’ approach
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PITTSBURGH — Harris plans to flesh out her economic vision today in what her campaign is billing as a “major speech” in battleground Pennsylvania, with the goal of chipping away at Donald Trump’s advantage among voters on the issue.
The speech will tie together various themes of the Harris campaign, including her own biography and how it defines her economic vision.
Along with touting her existing economic proposals, Harris will announce “new proposals for how she would make sure America leads the world in manufacturing in the industries of the future,” a senior Harris campaign official said, without providing details.
Harris plans to describe her economic vision as “pragmatic” and not “bound by ideology,” the official said. The message is consistent with her shift to the center since she claimed the Democratic presidential nomination and also counters Trump’s bid to highlight left-wing positions she took in 2019 as a presidential candidate.
