Overturning an election has gotten harder

In today's newsletter: Legal experts say an attempt to overturn the 2024 election results would be more difficult than in 2020. NBC News' Andrea Mitchell writes about Antony Blinken's small victory in the Middle East. And a lost Chopin waltz is discovered after 200 years.

Here's what to know today.

Why it would be difficult for Trump to reverse the 2024 election

In the nearly four years since former President Donald Trump claimed the 2020 election was stolen, creating chaos, an array of new guardrails have been put into place. Legal experts say those changes would make another attempt to overturn the result of the election much more difficult and unlikely.

First and foremost, Trump is no longer president and does not have the power of the executive branch at his disposal.

If Trump attempted to overturn the election result in Congress, he'd be up against the bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act. The law, passed in 2022, tightened the process to cast and count electoral votes, gave federal courts a clear role to quickly resolve disputes and made it more difficult for lawmakers to raise frivolous objections. In this scenario, a multi-step process to overturn the results would require compliance from both chambers of Congress, as well as state legislatures. And if all those political pieces fell into place, Trump and his organizers would still have to face the Supreme Court.

Matthew Sanderson, an election lawyer based in Washington, D.C., said he finds it "incredibly hard to believe" that such a scenario would play out until its end.

Beyond Congress, efforts to delay certifying election results on a local level would likely fizzle out, legal experts said. And already, some efforts by pro-Trump groups to challenge how votes are counted and certified have failed, including in Georgia.

Despite all the legal obstacles, some still fear the effect of Trump's rhetoric about a protracted post-election crisis, especially among armed groups.

Read the full story here.

More election coverage:

➡️ Vice President Kamala Harris is set to hold a rally this evening at the site where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, before the Capitol riot. She’ll encourage voters to put country over party and “turn the page” on the Trump era.

➡️ A day after Trump’s New York City rally, JD Vance said he hadn’t heard the racist jokes made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe but said Americans need to “stop getting so offended.”

➡️ Hinchcliffe — who let loose a series of racist jokes, including one in which he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” — workshopped the material the night before at a local comedy club.

➡️ Elon Musk and his super PAC have leaned into violent and vulgar rhetoric against Harris.

➡️ Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, said endorsements “do nothing to tip the scales of an election” in defending the newspaper’s decision to break with decades of tradition. WaPo has reportedly lost more than 200,000 digital subscriptions and three members of its editorial board on the heels of the decision.

➡️ It’s easy to read too much into early voting numbers. Here’s what NBC News’ Decision Desk has seen so far and their advice for how to avoid misreading the numbers.

➡️ The Decision Desk also shared how the exit poll process works and how it uses those results on election night and in the days after.

➡️ Nearly 150 ballot measures are up for votes across the country, deciding state policy issues like abortion access, voting procedures, minimum wage and more.

➡️ Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania thinks he has found a message to voters that will help him secure a fourth term: fighting “greedflation.”

➡️ A Michigan county clerk planned to retire after the 2024 election but changed her mind when she learned who could replace her. Now, the race has exploded into a larger battle about election denialism.

➡️ Authorities believe that fires set to ballot drop boxes in Portland, Oregon, and neighboring Vancouver, Washington, were likely related.

Analysis: Blinken can claim a win after Israeli strike in Iran

When Israel launched strikes last week on Iranian military targets, it marked a victory for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a war that shows no signs of letting up, chief Washington correspondent and chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell wrote in an analysis. The strikes showed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had bent to Blinken's urging to steer clear of certain targets to avoid escalation into a wider war.

The sole win is significant for Blinken in a year of losses. Israel continues to strike refugee camps in Gaza while only a trickle of food, water and fuel is delivered to the people who desperately need them. There is little evidence of progress on a cease-fire deal, and hopes are diminishing for a diplomatic breakthrough in the wake of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's death. In Lebanon, Israel is also defying the U.S. by expanding its bombing of Beirut to its suburbs.

However, Blinken still has his sights set on the future. In his most recent visit to the Middle East, he held detailed discussions on what will happen in Gaza once the war ends, a U.S. administration official said.

Read the full analysis.

More coverage of Middle East conflict:

Teen battles kidney failure after eating McDonald's burger

When asked about the past few weeks of her life, 15-year-old Kamberlyn Bowler has two words: "Not fun." Kamberlyn, of Grand Junction, Colorado, has been hospitalized and is battling kidney failure — a rare and potential life-threatening complication of E. coli poisoning. She's one of dozens of people who said they became sick after eating McDonald's Quarter Pounders. The CDC said in an update last week that at least 75 people across 13 states have been infected with E. coli after eating at the fast-food chain.

Kamberlyn's mother, Brittany Randall, said Kamberlyn's symptoms started as a fever and stomach pain, which progressed to renal failure days later. "Every day has been new tests or things that pop up, or it's basically watching her body just not work," Randall said, but her daughter's kidneys are starting to show "some signs" of improvement.

Lost Chopin waltz discovered after 200 years in a NY museum

A new piece of music believed to be penned by Frédéric Chopin has been discovered in the vault of a New York museum nearly 200 years after it was first written. It is not signed by Chopin but the penmanship matched the famous composer's, including his distinctive bass clef as well as his doodling characteristic.

Lang Lang, a world-renowned Chinese pianist who recorded the waltz for the New York Times, said, "it sounds very much like Chopin, with a very dramatic darkness turning into a positive thing. It’s beautiful.”

According to the New York Times, experts say Chopin is believed to have written around 28 waltzes before he died aged 39 in France in 1849. Despite this, only eight waltzes were published in his lifetime, and another nine after his death with the remaining believed to be lost or destroyed.

Arab American voters struggle with a difficult election decision

I’m proud of this piece pitched and produced by photo editor Vanessa Leroy and written by reporter Mirna Alsharif that features the voices and portraits of Arab American voters in Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn is the only Arab-majority city in the U.S. and traditionally leans Democratic. This election season, voters said they are disillusioned by both major parties, especially over the handling of the war in Gaza.

We hired photographer Mustafa Hussain, who also covered the RNC in Detroit for NBC News in July, to collaborate with Mirna in Dearborn. With each portrait, I really feel like I’m sitting across from each person and listening to what they are saying at this pivotal moment before they cast their votes.

— Zara Katz, senior photography director

NBC Select's editors rounded up the best sales on the internet this week, from Ninja and Brooks, to The Home Depot. Plus, one reporter tested out the social media-famous Jolie Filtered Showerhead and ended up with the softest hair she's ever had.

Thanks for reading the Morning Rundown. Today's newsletter was curated for you by Elizabeth Robinson.

If you have any comments — likes, dislikes — send us an email at: [email protected]

If you're a fan, please forward it to your family and friends. They can sign up here.