| Former President Donald Trump is feeding on fears as he campaigns for a White House return, from lax border enforcement to economic struggles of American families. But he’s also talking a lot about retribution of those who have crossed, criticized or campaigned against him over the years. NPR looked into his speeches and other public remarks since he began preparing in 2022 to run again in this year’s election. There are more than 100 instances where he has threatened to “investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents.” Expect this New York Times story extensively quoting John Kelly, a former chief of staff to Trump, to be prominent in the discussion the next few days. Kelly said Trump admires dictators and spoke positively about Adolf Hitler. Trump’s campaign denies the former president made the remarks.
A disinformation campaign that contained scurrilous allegations against Tim Walz originated in Russia, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The Associated Press and other news organizations have stories on the Russian-linked groups and their attempts to cast Walz as having been accused of sexual misconduct as a teacher. There is no evidence of that and a man whose name is featured in a viral video has said it is false. MPR News' Tom Crann spoke with a reporter who has been looking into the spread of disinformation.
Walz was in Wisconsin for campaign stops yesterday on the first day of in-person early voting, appearing in Madison with former Democratic President Barack Obama. Walz and Obama unloaded on Trump as being increasingly unstable and ripped his recent appearance at a McDonald’s as a stunt. “Everything he does is fake. Next he's going to be telling you he's a cop or a construction worker because he dances to the Village People,” Walz said. Obama noted that Trump is hawking watches and Bibles during this campaign and making outlandish comments on a regular basis. “If some of this stuff happened on Saturday Night Live, you'd be like, alright, that's going too far,” Obama said. Republicans said they were pushing early votes for Trump on the first day despite the former president’s hot-and-cold stance on pre-Election Day voting.
A crush of students and Minneapolis residents visited a pop-up voting site at the University of Minnesota yesterday. This year marks the first time Minnesota college students will get to vote early on campus following a law passed in 2023 by the state Legislature that allows for on-campus pop-up early voting sites. The Harris-Walz campaign capitalized on the early voting site with a visit from campaign surrogate U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost. Frost is the first Gen Z member of Congress and spent the day encouraging students to vote. He also met with some College Democrats and volunteers alongside U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and state Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis. Ellie caught up with the congressman.
Groups that are trying to find evidence of ideologically-driven school lesson plans are swarming school districts with expensive and time-intensive data searches. School leaders in Hastings, Owatonna, Rochester and other places are pushing back and suggesting law changes are needed to prevent the fishing expeditions, sometimes by groups or people that file the requests anonymously. They involve search terms such as “critical race theory” and “systematic racism.” MPR’s Elizabeth Shockman has a story on the searches and what school district leaders hope is done about them.
In Grand Rapids, voters are more interested in maintaining civility than talking politics. The city along the Mississippi River once voted reliably Democratic, in lockstep with the Iron Range a few miles to the northeast. But the politics in the region have trended redder in recent years. In conversations with more than a dozen residents last week, voters told reporter Dan Kraker they are chiefly concerned about the economy, including inflation and taxes. They’re also focused on three school board seats that are up for grabs following a failed referendum to boost funding for the district last year. | 