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Muslim Americans could flex ‘political muscles’ in November US elections

Muslims account for less than 2% of the U.S. population, but as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, Muslim American influence in U.S. elections is growing, driven largely by concerns over the continued war between Israel and Hamas.
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Some US lawmakers urge cooling of heated presidential campaign rhetoric

U.S. lawmakers from both major political parties have called for cooling the nation’s heated political rhetoric six weeks before the November 5th presidential election. This follows a second apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. And his claims of immigrants eating people’s pets that has an Ohio Haitan community on edge. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the story.
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Republicans in swing states say they see scant signs of groups door-knocking for Trump

Lansing, Michigan — Republican activists in swing states say they have seen little sign of the teams tasked with knocking on doors and turning out infrequent voters on behalf of Donald Trump, raising concerns about the party’s presidential nominee relying on outside groups for an important part of his campaign operations.

Trump and the Republican National Committee he controls opted to share get-out-the-vote duties in key parts of the most competitive states this year with groups such as America PAC, the organization supported by billionaire Elon Musk.

It is difficult to demonstrate that something is not happening. But with fewer than 50 days until the Nov. 5 election, dozens of Republican officials, activists and operatives in Michigan, North Carolina and other battleground states say they have rarely or never witnessed the group’s canvassers. In Arizona and Nevada, the Musk-backed political action committee replaced its door-knocking company just this past week.

“I haven’t seen anybody,” said Nate Wilkowski, field director for the Republican Party in vote-rich Oakland County, Michigan, which includes crucial Detroit suburbs. He was speaking specifically of America PAC. “Nobody’s given me a heads-up that they’re around in Oakland County areas.”

Trump has relied on the loyalty of his fervent base, in an election expected to pivot on turnout. The spotty evidence, however, of what was portrayed as a sophisticated operation has some party activists questioning the operation’s value. Trump’s campaign views the race with Vice President Kamala Harris as a toss-up among likely voters but believes it has the edge among people who stayed away in 2016 and 2020, making it even more essential to reach them.

The work is particularly important in Michigan, where Trump lost by fewer than 160,000 votes in 2020, and where the Republican Party began the year mired in debt and fighting an ugly contest over the rightful state party leader.

Michigan’s Republican chairman, Pete Hoekstra, said he was told that America PAC canvassers had arrived in late August and were at work. A spokesperson for the PAC said canvassers were in Michigan, as well as Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the seven most competitive states. The spokesperson declined to say how many canvassers there were across the states.

Meghan Reckling, a Republican canvassing firm owner in Michigan, said she spotted two America PAC canvassers Tuesday in Oakland County. Identifiable in blue polo shirts emblazoned with “America,” they were working an area that Reckling’s own data showed to be one with low-propensity voters, she said.

“They had, you could tell, a very pleasant exchange with the lady who answered the door, and probably talked to her for five minutes,” Reckling said. “From what I observed, they were obviously engaging in direct conversations.”

But in interviews with more than two dozen activists and party officials across the seven battleground states, such reports were rare.

“I don’t know what the PACs are doing,” said Mark Forton, the Republican chair in Macomb County, Michigan, a populous, suburban area northeast of Detroit. “I don’t know if they are going door to door.”

Trump aides say the campaign has an estimated 30,000 volunteer captains who are identifying less likely voters at the local level, including through neighborhood canvassing.

Campaign political director James Blair also estimates that close to 2,500 paid canvassers, with America PAC making up a significant chunk, are working in the seven states. The PAC has paid canvassing firms more than $14 million since mid-August for work on the presidential campaign, according to Federal Election Commission spending reports filed by the group.

Blair dismissed the statement that the campaign was ceding work to outside groups. Instead, he said, the campaign was making use of “the resources within those groups to bolster the frequency of contacts and the total coverage within the universe of where we would want them.”

“We very much are focused on low-propensity voters, because it’s what makes strategically the most sense in terms of how the president is going to win these states, and these groups’ efforts have helped reach them,” Blair said.

America PAC is run by former top aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ failed presidential campaign. Trump’s team also is sharing the responsibility of reaching less-frequent voters with groups that include Turning Point USA, led by conservative millennial personality Charlie Kirk, and the Faith and Freedom Coalition, headed by Christian conservative figure Ralph Reed.

Part of the reason for the campaign’s move was the result of an FEC ruling this year that a candidate’s campaign and outside groups could coordinate their canvassing efforts with super PACs, and specifically share voter lists and data that they collect door to door. It means campaigns could share much of their labor- and cost-heavy ground efforts with groups that can take unlimited donations.

Harris’ outreach on the ground in the seven states is being led by campaign-paid staff, a number the campaign puts at nearly 2,200 in more than 328 offices. Campaign aides said groups affiliated with labor organizations were canvassing independent of the campaign.

The vast majority of what outside groups that support Harris are doing is advertising. Based on ad reservations for Harris and the leading super PAC supporting her, they are on track to spend nearly $175 million more than Trump’s campaign and the leading super PACs supporting him by Election Day. Harris’ campaign has outspent Trump’s on advertising by 2-to-1 since she entered the race on July 23, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

Over the past week, there were complications for America PAC, the most high-profile of the groups helping Trump in 2024.

America PAC fired Nevada-based canvassing company September Group, according to two people familiar with the matter. America PAC had paid the company almost $2.7 million a month ago, according to FEC reports. The people familiar with September Group’s dismissal spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private business decisions.

A spokesman for America PAC declined to confirm the move.

Trump is not the first candidate to delegate some typical campaign-managed duties to outside groups. But the arrangement has not gone smoothly for some of the others who have tried it.

Last year, DeSantis entrusted much of the political outreach for his Republican presidential campaign to a super PAC called Never Back Down, with conflict between its board and top campaign personnel late in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses. Despite starting the campaign with roughly $100 million, DeSantis dropped out after losing the first contest in Iowa.

In his unsuccessful quest for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush attempted something very similar, ceding much of the political infrastructure work to a super PAC called Right to Rise, which raised more than $114 million in 2015.
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Trump campaigns in North Carolina without state’s top Republican candidate

WILMINGTON, N.C. — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump returned to North Carolina on Saturday, stumping in the southern battleground state that both Democrats and Republicans are treating as increasingly critical to victory in November.

But the former president campaigned in Wilmington, along the state’s southern coast, without Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial nominee and one of the former president’s top surrogates in the state, following a CNN report about his alleged posts on a pornography website’s message board.

Robinson has denied writing the posts, which include lewd and racist comments, saying Thursday that he wouldn’t be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies.”

Trump’s campaign has appeared to distance itself from Robinson in the wake of the CNN reporting, which the AP has not independently verified, saying in a statement to the AP that Trump “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country” and calling North Carolina “a vital part of that plan,” without mentioning Robinson.

While Robinson won his Republican gubernatorial primary in March, he’s been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general. State Republican officials have stood by Robinson, whose decision to keep campaigning could threaten Republican prospects in other key races, including Trump’s efforts in a battleground state he previously won twice.

Democrats have seized on the opportunity to highlight Trump’s ties to Robinson, with billboards showing the two together, as well as a new ad from Vice President Kamala Harris ‘ campaign highlighting the Republican candidates’ ties as well as Robinson’s support for a statewide abortion ban without exceptions. According to Harris’ campaign, it’s their first ad effort related to tying Trump to a down-ballot race.

Outdoor rally

Trump’s first outdoor rally since the second apparent attempt to assassinate him was at a Wilmington airport, where a large American flag hung from a crane, with hundreds of chairs and standing room for many more spectators. Bulletproof glass surrounded the area on stage, a new precaution for outdoor venues the Secret Service implemented after a bullet grazed Trump’s ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Charlie Kimball, a 46-year-old former construction worker from Burgaw, who said he is on disability, dismissed the allegations against Robinson as “fake news.”

“That’s his personal life. Who cares?” Kimball said. “It’s all hearsay. … It’s not true. It’s all speculation. Where’s the proof?”

A Republican has carried North Carolina in every general election since 1976 save one, when Barack Obama won the state in 2008. Trump won there in both his previous campaigns but by less than 1.5 percentage points over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, the closest margin of any state that Trump won. That’s part of why Democrats see the state as winnable this fall.

With neither Senate seat up for grabs, the gubernatorial contest has been North Carolina’s marquee down-ballot race this year. Robinson has become a natural top surrogate for Trump in the state and a frequent presence at campaign events there, appearing with the nominee as recently as last month at an event. Trump has long praised Robinson, who is Black, referring to him as “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

Endorsing Robinson ahead of the Republican gubernatorial primary, Trump continued: “I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two.”

State up for grabs

While more visits have been made by presidential contenders to the Rust Belt battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, both Harris and Trump have made multiple trips to North Carolina, highlighting the state’s importance. Following Biden’s departure from the race in July, Trump held his first large-scale rally there, turning his full focus toward Harris.

Wilmington is home to New Hanover County, which Biden won in 2020. But his margin over Trump in the county was among his slimmest in the state.

Julia Novotny, 55, of Wilmington, said she’s come around to supporting Trump after initial reservations because of allegations that he’s been sexually abusive to women, which he denies.

“He’s classy, he’s a gentleman, he looks good in a suit, and he has strong values,” Novotny said. “Everybody makes mistakes, and whether he did or didn’t, I don’t know, but you know what? Leave him alone. He’s a good man. He wants to change this country. Our country is in the dirt, and the only man who pulls us out is Donald Trump.”
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Harris steps up outreach to Mormon voters in battleground Arizona 

PHOENIX — Vice President Kamala Harris is stepping up her efforts to win over voters who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, enlisting prominent members of the faith to make the case in pivotal Arizona that Donald Trump does not align with the church’s values.

Her state campaign announced on Thursday an advisory committee to formalize the outreach to current and former members of the church, widely known as the Mormon church.

With nearly 450,000 church members in Arizona, about 6% of the state’s population, Latter-day Saints and former church members could prove critical in what will likely be an extremely close race.

Latter-day Saints have traditionally voted Republican and are likely to remain part of the GOP coalition. Clustered in solidly Republican states, they have long been a major force in GOP primaries and local politics across the West, but they have not held much sway in national elections. In 2020, about seven in 10 Mormon voters nationally supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast, while about one-quarter backed Democrat Joe Biden.

Core to Harris’ strategy is preventing Trump from running up big margins with demographic groups that favor him. While she is unlikely to win anything close to a majority of Latter-day Saints, picking up a small share of their votes would make a big difference in a state with a recent history of tight elections. Biden won by just under 10,500 votes in 2020. Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes won by just 280 in 2022.

Constitution and faith

Latter-day Saints supporting Harris in Arizona make a faith-based appeal for backing the Democratic ticket despite any reservations, pointing to church teaching that the U.S. Constitution is divinely inspired.

“The Constitution is a tenet of our faith, and we certainly shouldn’t be voting for people who have shown a disdain for it,” said Joel John, a former Republican state lawmaker who will serve as a co-chair of the committee. “And we certainly shouldn’t be supporting someone who tried to overthrow it on January 6.”

John said that explains how his faith guides his own support for Harris but emphasized he’s not speaking on behalf of the church and doesn’t judge Latter-day Saints who vote differently.

The Salt Lake City-based church does not endorse candidates or political parties, but John said Latter-day Saints are encouraged to elect politicians who are “good, honest and wise.” He said those are moral traits that Trump lacks and that transcend any policy differences they might have with Harris, such as her economic plans or position on gun rights.

Halee Dobbins, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, said Democrats have “allowed progressive policies to erode traditional values.”

“President Trump has consistently stood with believers by protecting religious institutions, appointing constitutionalist Justices, and defending Christian values nationally and abroad,” Dobbins said in a statement. “He has made it a priority to protect religious communities, not fight against them.”

Trump behavior

While many conservative-leaning religious voters warmed to him long ago, Trump has struggled to win over Latter-day Saints. For many members of the church, Trump’s penchant for foul language and demeaning rhetoric toward women and people of color clashes with the church’s values of humility, morality and compassion.

It has not helped that Trump has feuded with U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, among the best known members of the church, and former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

In Arizona, Latter-day Saints make up an outsize share of the population in metro Phoenix’s East Valley, a suburban area where ticket-splitting voters have rejected Trump-backed Republicans, helping to push a reliable GOP state into a battleground. Mesa, Arizona’s third-largest city with more than 500,000 people, traces its modern history to a settlement founded by pioneers from the faith in the 1800s.

Church members also settled in swaths of rural Arizona and their descendants remain deeply rooted there.

Voting on morals

Democratic efforts to woo Latter-day Saints are not new. Hillary Clinton in 2016 drew parallels between Trump’s pledge to stop Muslim immigration and the history of religious persecution against Latter-day Saints. Biden went further four years later, investing in organizing church members as Harris is trying to do now.

The “social expectation” for members of the faith to align with conservatives is strong, but Harris has an opening in particular to win over younger Latter-day Saints, who, like the country at large, are more diverse, said Brittany Romanello, an anthropologist, Mellon postdoctoral fellow and faculty associate at Arizona State University. Her research includes culture and identity of Latter-day Saints.

“Mormons have been shown to have this attitude that they aren’t just voting based on party affiliation only,” said Romanello, who was raised in the church but is no longer practicing. “They’re voting based on morals.”
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Culture war in US education lurks as election issue

U.S. presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have focused their campaigns mainly on hot-button issues such as immigration, abortion and the economy. But the culture clash over how to handle gender identity matters in elementary and secondary schools is also a campaign issue, with loud voices on all sides. VOA’s Laurel Bowman reports. Videographer: Saqib Ul Islam
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Georgia State Election Board approves rule requiring hand count of ballots 

atlanta — The election board for the U.S. state of Georgia on Friday voted to approve a new rule that requires poll workers to count the number of paper ballots by hand after voting is completed, a change that critics worry could delay the reporting of election night results.

The board’s decision went against the advice of the state attorney general’s office, the secretary of state’s office and an association of county election officials. Three Republican board members who were praised by former President Donald Trump during a rally last month in Atlanta voted to approve the measure, while the lone Democrat on the board and the nonpartisan chair voted to reject it. 

The State Election Board has found itself mired in controversy in recent months as it considers new rules, many of them proposed by Trump allies. Democrats, legal experts and democracy advocates have raised concerns that new rules could be used by the former president and his supporters to cause chaos in this crucial swing state and undermine public confidence in results if he loses to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in November. 

In a memo sent to election board members Thursday, the office of state Attorney General Chris Carr said no provision in state law allows hand counting of ballots at precincts. The memo says the rule is “not tethered to any statute” and is “likely the precise kind of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do.” It warns that any rule that oversteps the board’s authority is unlikely to survive a legal challenge. 

Already, two rules the board passed last month having to do with certifying vote counts have been challenged in two separate lawsuits, one filed by Democrats and the other filed by a conservative group. A judge has set an October 1 trial on the Democrats’ lawsuit. 

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last month called the hand counting rule “misguided,” saying it would delay the reporting of election results and introduce risks to chain of custody procedures. 

The new rule requires that the number of ballots — not the number of votes — be counted at each polling place by three separate poll workers until all three counts are the same. If a scanner has more than 750 ballots inside at the end of voting, the poll manager can decide to begin the count the following day. 

Georgia voters make selections on a touchscreen voting machine that prints out a paper ballot that includes a human-readable list of the voter’s choices as well as a QR code that is read by a scanner to tally the votes. 

Proponents say the rule is needed to make sure the number of paper ballots matches the electronic tallies on scanners, check-in computers and voting machines. The three workers will have to count the ballots in piles of 50, and the poll manager needs to explain and fix, if possible, any discrepancies, as well as document them. 

Results could be delayed if polling places decide to wait until the hand tally is finished before they send the memory cards that record the votes in machines to the central tabulation location. 

Several county election officials who spoke out against the rule during a public comment period preceding the vote warned that a hand count could delay the reporting of election night results. They also worried about putting an additional burden on poll workers who have already worked a long day. 

Leaders of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials raised concerns similar to Raffensperger’s in a letter to the State Election Board last month, warning the rule would ultimately undermine confidence in the process. The nonprofit association’s members include over 500 election officials and workers statewide, according to the organization. 

Janelle King, a board member who worked with the author of the rule on the wording, said she wasn’t concerned if election night reporting was slowed a bit in favor of making sure that the number of ballots is accurate. 

“What I don’t want to do is set a precedent that we’re OK with speed over accuracy,” she said as the board was discussing the rule proposal, adding that she’d rather wait an extra hour or so for results than hear about lawsuits over inaccurate counts later. 

Board chairman John Fervier cautioned that the board was going against the advice of its lawyers and could be exceeding its authority. 

“This board is an administrative body. It’s not a legislative body,” he said. “If the legislature had wanted this, they would have put it in statute.” 

Some other states already count ballots by hand at the end of voting. Illinois has done so for decades “without complaints of delays or any potential impact on ballot security,” Matt Dietrich, a spokesperson for the Illinois State Board of Elections, said in a statement. “It’s designed to ensure integrity and voter trust and by all accounts has worked.” 

Guidelines from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission say “the total number of ballots cast should balance with the number of total voters processed at each polling place,” but they do not call for a hand count of ballots from a tabulator. 

The board also tabled until 2025 a proposal for a similar count at early in-person voting locations. The board considered 11 new rules Friday, adopting a few others that mostly make minor changes and tabling some more complicated ones. 

The election officials association had urged the State Election Board in a letter Tuesday not to consider any new rules when Election Day is less than 50 days away, ballots are already going out and poll worker training is well underway. 

“We do not oppose rules because we are lazy or because a political operative or organization wants us to,” the letter says. “We oppose rules because they are poorly written, inefficient, would not accomplish their stated goals, or go directly against state law.” 
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Governor nominee vows to keep running after report on racial, sexual comments

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson vowed on Thursday to remain in the race despite a CNN report that he posted strongly worded racial and sexual comments on an online message board, saying he won’t be forced out by “salacious tabloid lies.”

Robinson, the sitting lieutenant governor who decisively won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, has been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the current attorney general.

“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it,” Robinson said in a video posted Thursday on the social media platform X. “And we know that with your help, we will.”

Robinson referenced in the video a story that he said CNN was running, but he didn’t give details.

“Let me reassure you, the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he said. “You know my words. You know my character.”

The CNN report describes a series of racial and sexual comments Robinson posted on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago.

CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”

CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” at women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.

The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.

CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.

Media outlets already have reported about a 2021 speech by Robinson in a church in which he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.

Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina, a state on the U.S. Atlantic coast. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson would hurt former President Donald Trump’s bid to win the battleground state’s 16 electoral votes, and potential other GOP down-ballot candidates.

Recent polls of North Carolina voters show Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris locked in a close race. The same polls show Stein with a roughly 10-point lead over Robinson.

Stein and his allies have repeatedly cited a Facebook post from 2019 in which Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”

The Stein campaign said in a statement after the report that “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor.”

State law says a gubernatorial nominee could withdraw as a candidate no later than the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. That begins Friday, so the withdrawal deadline would be late Thursday. State Republican leaders could then pick a replacement.

Trump has frequently voiced his support for Robinson, who has been considered a rising star in his party, well-known for his fiery speeches and evocative rhetoric. Ahead of the March primary, Trump at a rally in Greensboro called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” for his speaking ability.

Trump’s campaign appears to be distancing itself from Robinson in the wake of the report. In a statement to the AP, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the GOP nominee’s campaign “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country,” calling North Carolina “a vital part of that plan.”

Leavitt went on to contrast Trump’s economic record with that of Harris, not mentioning Robinson by name or answering questions as to whether he would appear with Trump at a Saturday campaign rally in Wilmington or had been invited to do so.

A spokesperson for Harris’ campaign, Ammar Moussa, said on social media platform X that “Donald Trump has a Mark Robinson problem” and reposted a photo of the two together.

The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement on X, saying that despite his denial of CNN’s report, it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.” The party referred to economic and immigration policies as the predominant election issues North Carolinians will care more about instead.

“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day,” the party said.

Scott Lassiter, a Republican state Senate candidate in a Raleigh-area swing district, did call on Robinson to “suspend his campaign to allow a quality candidate to finish this race.”

Ed Broyhill, a North Carolina member of the Republican National Committee, said he spoke to Robinson Thursday afternoon and still supports him as the nominee. In an interview, Broyhill suggested the online details may have been fabricated.

“It seems like a dirty trick to me,” Broyhill said.

On Capitol Hill, U.S. Representative Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chair of the House GOP’s campaign committee, told reporters the report’s findings were “concerning.” Robinson, he said, has some reassuring to do in the state.

Robinson, 56, was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office in 2020. He tells a life story of childhood poverty, jobs that he blames the North American Free Trade Agreement for ending, and personal bankruptcy. His four-minute speech to the Greensboro City Council defending gun rights and lamenting the “demonizing” of police officers went viral — and led him to a National Rifle Association board position and popularity among conservative voters.
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US dance party tour kicks off to boost voter turnout

Can Republicans and Democrats set aside their differences on the dance floor? A U.S. dance party tour aims to get out the vote and bring joy to a divided nation as Election Day looms. Daybreaker, a rave organizer, aims to help people register to vote and get excited about going to the polls.
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Trump, Harris focus on economy as election draws near

With fewer than 50 days left in this year’s U.S. presidential race, candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are campaigning in key swing states, each declaring to be the nominee with policies that can boost the economy. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports.
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US newsrooms combat fake news directed at Hispanic community

Hispanic audiences in the United States rely on social media for news, but disinformation on those platforms is rife. Newsrooms and media initiatives are finding new ways to combat false news and help audiences prepare for U.S. elections. Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story. Videographer: Tina Trinh
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California laws target deepfake political ads, disinformation

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Intelligence suggests Iran sought to ensnare Trump, Biden in hack-and-leak

washington — Iran’s efforts to upend U.S. politics ahead of November’s presidential election by targeting the campaign of former President Donald Trump went well beyond a standard hack-and-leak operation.

According to U.S. intelligence officials, Tehran sought to ensnare the campaign of Trump’s then-opponent, incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden.

Information released late Wednesday by U.S. intelligence officials indicates Iranian cyber actors not only tried to leak stolen Trump campaign documents to media organizations but also tried to feed them to Biden campaign officials, hoping the Biden team might try to use them.

“Iranian malicious cyber actors in late June and early July sent unsolicited emails to individuals then associated with President Biden’s campaign that contained an excerpt taken from stolen, nonpublic material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” according to a statement by the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

“There is currently no information indicating those recipients replied,” the statement added, noting the Iranian hackers have continued to peddle the stolen information to U.S. media organizations.

“The FBI has been tracking this activity, has been in contact with the victims, and will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible,” the statement said.

Earlier this month, a U.S. intelligence official warned that Tehran is “making a greater effort than in the past to influence this year’s elections.”

Those efforts included what the official described as a “multipronged approach to stoke internal divisions and undermine voter confidence” that has included attacks on Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democrats’ presidential nominee after Biden ended his campaign in late July. 

Iran’s mission to the United Nations has not yet responded to a request from VOA for comment. It has previously denied involvement in any attempts to interfere with U.S. elections.

In an email to VOA, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt raised the possibility, without providing supporting evidence, that Harris and Biden may have used hacked material obtained from Iranians to try to hurt the Trump campaign. 

The Harris campaign told VOA in an email that it has cooperated with law enforcement since it was made aware of the Iranian activities. “We’re not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign,” said campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein.

“A few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt,” Finkelstein said. “We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections, including this unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity.”

The Trump campaign first announced the suspected hack last month, initially blaming “foreign sources hostile to the United States.” U.S. intelligence officials attributed the attack to Iran about a week later.

An unclassified U.S. assessment issued earlier this month cautioned, “Iran has a suite of tools at its disposal.”

“Beyond attempts to hack and leak information, Iran is conducting covert social media operations using fake personas and using AI to help publish inauthentic news articles,” it added.

Private technology companies have likewise warned about Iran’s activities.

In a report issued just days before the Trump campaign said it had been hacked by Iran, Microsoft said Tehran-linked actors were already seeding the online space for influence operations and potential cyberattacks.

But Microsoft President Brad Smith on Wednesday indicated Iranian preparations began even earlier.

“We’ve seen, starting in May, increasingly sophisticated Iranian activity to penetrate network accounts,” Smith told a cyber summit in Washington.  “It’s a classic prelude to hack-and-leak operations. If you can steal the email in June, you can use it in October and you can even change the email.”
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Teamsters union declines to endorse Trump or Harris

WASHINGTON — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined Wednesday to endorse Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for president, saying neither candidate had sufficient support from the 1.3 million-member union.

“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before big business,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a statement. “We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”

Harris met Monday with a panel of Teamsters, having long courted organized labor and made support for the middle class her central policy goal. Trump also met with a panel of Teamsters and even invited O’Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention, where the union leader railed against corporate greed.

The Teamsters said Wednesday that internal polling of its members showed Trump with an advantage over Harris.

The Teamsters’ choice to not endorse came just weeks ahead of the November 5 election, far later than other large unions such as the AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers, which have chosen to back Harris.
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False reports of explosives found in car near Trump rally spread online

New York — Law enforcement officials on Long Island worked quickly on Wednesday to publicly knock down social media posts falsely reporting that explosives had been found in a car near former President Donald Trump’s planned rally in New York.

The false reports of an explosive began circulating hours before the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign event at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, just days after he was apparently the target of a second possible assassination attempt.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said police questioned and detained a person who “may have been training a bomb detection dog,” near the site of the rally and “falsely reported explosives being found.”

Lt. Scott Skrynecki, a spokesperson for the county police, said in follow-up messages that the person, who police have not yet identified, was a civilian and not a member of a law enforcement agency.

He also said the person was not working at or affiliated with the event, which is expected to draw thousands of Trump supporters to the arena that was formerly the home of the NHL’s New York Islanders.

The rally is Trump’s first on Long Island, a suburban area just east of New York City, since 2017.

In 2020, President Joe Biden defeated Trump by a roughly 4% margin on Long Island, besting him in Nassau County by about 60,000 votes, though Trump carried neighboring Suffolk County by more than 200 votes.

Earlier Wednesday, Skrynecki and other county officials responded swiftly to knock down the online line claims, which appear to have started with a post from a reporter citing unnamed sources in the local police department.

The claims were then shared widely on X, formerly Twitter, by a number of prominent accounts, including that of the company’s owner, Elon Musk, which has nearly 200 million followers. Spokespersons for X didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

“False,” Skrynecki texted the AP as the claims spread.

“No. Ridiculous. Zero validity,” said Christopher Boyle, spokesperson for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
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US presidential candidates seek changes to social media content regulation

Existing laws governing internet free speech are being questioned across the U.S. political spectrum. VOA’s Matt Dibble looks at how candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump view the issue.
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