Political Wire

Elon Musk’s Megaphone Propels Conspiracy Theory

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“Elon Musk elevated a false conspiracy theory about Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico over the weekend, lifting a fringe claim concerning the Texan’s mental health to the forefront of users’ X feeds, where it garnered hundreds of thousands of impressions,” the Washington Post reports.

Wrote Musk: “The Talarico campaign is hiding something big that voters ought to know about.”

“Musk’s reply amassed over 870,000 views, more than double the impression count of the post to which he was responding.”

Mother Jones: Elon Musk is the midterms’ biggest disinformation risk.

Talarico MAGA Conspiracy Theory Is the Latest to Blow Up

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Aaron Blake: “Two weeks ago, GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri saw his conspiracy theory about former special counsel Jack Smith implode spectacularly at a congressional hearing for all to see.”

“Rather than seemingly learning a lesson from that episode, the MAGA movement in recent days embraced another sketchy theory that quickly fell apart — that Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was missing from the campaign trail because of a mental health episode.”

Rolling Stone: The right’s desperate conspiracy theory about James Talarico goes up in flames.

The Conspiracy Probe of Trump Foes Is Faltering

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“Last year, Justice Department officials said a sweeping investigation would unravel a grand conspiracy by a cabal of national security officials who sought to undermine President Trump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Trump allies hoped it would definitively confirm what they have been alleging for years: Officials who investigated the president over the last decade engaged in what was essentially a coordinated effort to violate his civil rights.”

“Instead, the probe has been beset by departures, infighting and inexperience.”

Election Deniers Have Trump’s Ear On Voting Machines

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“Election deniers peddling conspiracies about voting machines have gotten President Donald Trump’s attention less than a month before the midterms,” the Washington Sun reports.

“Trump on Monday reportedly met with conspiracy theorist Tina Peters, who for months has been urging Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to investigate voting machines using power purportedly vested to him under the executive order, which declared a national emergency on certain Chinese software and parts.”

The Guardian: Election deniers stoke Trump-driven ballot security fears before midterms.

Proud Boys Go From Prosecutions to Pardons to Premiere

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“President Trump has spent the past half decade working with his allies on a revisionist history of Jan. 6, 2021, trying to rebrand the rioters who breached the Capitol that day as persecuted patriots and transform an act of political violence into what he once described as a ‘day of love,'” the New York Times reports.

“The latest chapter in that alternate account was written on Saturday evening when 300 people gathered at an arts center in West Palm Beach, Fla. down the road from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence. They were there for the debut screening of ‘American Martyrs,’ a new documentary about the far-right Proud Boys who went from being prosecuted for the Capitol attack to being granted clemency by the president.”

Trump Claims Democrats Plotted to Kill Him

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“President Trump alleged Tuesday that the July 13, 2024, attempt on his life in Butler, Pa. was part of a ‘Democratic plot’ against him,” the New York Post reports.

Said Trump: “Everybody knows the Crooked Joe Biden FBI didn’t do what they should have with respect to the Lunatic who shot me in Butler, PA.”

He added: “By the time I got into Office, on January 20th, most of the information was missing, altered, corrupted, or gone. New info was just found! Why wasn’t it seen long ago? This was all a Democrat Plot, to get me out of the Election, that failed.'”

The MAGA Right Is Only Pretending to Be Censored

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Anne Applebaum: “During the Biden administration, MAGA allies and politicians filed multiple lawsuits with the goal of exposing alleged censorship. None has done so. One of them, brought by the Missouri attorney general, made it all the way to the Supreme Court before justices asked for underlying evidence that the government had censored anyone. The answer was no.”

“Another, brought against the Stanford research project by America First Legal—Stephen Miller’s team—failed in July, when a judge found the suit had no standing, no jurisdiction, and, after a discovery process requested by the plaintiffs, no evidence. There was no proof, in other words, that the Stanford research had resulted in anyone being censored.”

“Other cases against the Biden administration were simply settled by President Trump’s Department of Justice without finding any evidence of ‘censorship’ either.”

Last-Minute Doomsday Scenarios for the 2026 Election

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“Imaginations run wild at what President Donald Trump and his allies might yet do to interfere in the coming midterm election. He’s already done quite a bit,” CNN reports.

“This is the man who alleged widespread voter fraud even in the two elections he won and who tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election he still won’t admit he lost. There’s no evidence of any such fraud.”

“Asked in recent months about some more extreme possible actions he could take in November or after, Trump has stayed coy while leaving ample room to stoke conspiracy theories, even as his top aides have continued to raise unsubstantiated concerns about voting machines and noncitizens voting.”

RFK Jr Suggests Two Measles Deaths Were ‘Fabricated’

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“Anti-vaccine activists are trying to track down the families of two people, including at least one newborn, who died after contracting measles in Pennsylvania, as governor Josh Shapiro tangles with Robert F Kennedy Jr over his ‘inaccurate and misleading claims,'” The Guardian reports.

“Kennedy, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, suggested late Wednesday that the deaths in the state may have been ‘fabricated’ after a Republican coroner – an elected political office in Lancaster county – claimed one of the measles-associated deaths was unrelated to the virus, although the given cause would be consistent with measles.”

Tina Peters On an Election Conspiracy Roadshow

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“Two months into her post-prison life, election denier Tina Peters traveled to Washington for high-level meetings this week with Trump administration officials, pitching her plan to invoke emergency powers and assert unprecedented federal control over elections before the November midterms,” CNN reports.

“The DC trip – where Peters met Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and the chief of the Justice Department’s civil rights division — was her latest stop in a national tour promoting her vision to overhaul U.S. elections.”

“She has used her newfound freedom after her prison sentence was cut short in June to spread her usual false claims about voting machines rigging elections, speaking at conferences and hitting the right-wing podcast circuit.”

Why MAGA Is So Obsessed with Fauci

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Peter Wehner: “So what explains the rage directed at one of the most distinguished scientists of his generation? Some of it is the result of an era in which a major political party—in this case, the Republican Party—has become deranged and captive to conspiratorial thinking. It draws energy from the dark passions.”

“Many people within the party, especially within its leadership and the right-wing ecosystem, delight in destroying institutions and individuals. Fauci has a target on his back because during the pandemic, he refused to live in the Twilight Zone. He called out those who did. And for MAGA world, that is unforgivable.”

Rolling Stone: What the Fauci fixation reveals about our political system.

Trump Targets El-Sayed

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“President Donald Trump panned Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in a social media post, calling the progressive Democrat a ‘Communist, who is not liked in Detroit,’ while alleging without evidence rampant voter fraud in the state,” Politico reports.

Wrote Trump on Truth Social: “Wayne County (Detroit) in Michigan is one of the most corrupt voting areas in the United States, if not the World. It is strictly Third World! Miracles happen in Wayne County, including more votes being cast than there are voters, by a lot.”

Fauci’s Critics Have Power and They’re Coming After Him

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Washington Post: “The effort has exposed the difficulty of settling, six years later, the bitter disputes that made Fauci one of the pandemic’s most polarizing figures. Paul and other Republicans say newly obtained records have raised fresh questions about Fauci’s conduct. Several senators accused him of misleading Americans during the coronavirus pandemic and pressed him on whether he engaged in a cover-up of the virus’s potential origins.”

“But some of the central allegations have been investigated before, and even some Republicans involved in those inquiries question how much the new material adds. Fauci denies claims of a cover-up, and his allies say he is stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Their fears were accentuated after a former Fauci aide was arrested in April after he privately bragged about concealing emails.
The pressure on Fauci, 85, is intensifying. More lawmakers are preparing to challenge him. Paparazzi lurk outside his door, and death threats persist.”

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.

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