Democracy Now

• Donald Trump Wins Presidency After Kamala Harris Underperforms in Swing States
• Republicans Win Senate Majority for First Time Since 2020
• House of Representatives Remains Up for Grabs as Vote Counting Continues
• Voters in 7 States Approve Abortion Rights Measures; 3 Others Fail
• Protests Erupt Across Israel After Netanyahu Fires War Chief Yoav Gallant
• Palestinians Condemn Biden's Support for Israeli Military as Assault on Gaza Continues
• Israeli Raids on Occupied West Bank Kill 8, Wound Child and Photojournalist
• Israeli Strike on Residential Building Kills 20 in Beirut Suburb
• NGOs Ask U.N. Human Rights Council to Probe Israel's Assault on Lebanon
• U.K. Authorities Drop Terrorism Charges for Retired Academic Who Advocated for Palestinian Rights
• Rudy Giuliani Empties Prized Possessions from Manhattan Home Following $148M Defamation Judgment

As Latino voters are a key voting bloc in the 2024 presidential election in battleground states like Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania, they have been targeted by a rise in Spanish-language misinformation. Most of the false messaging disparages Kamala Harris and supports Donald Trump, says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa, host of Latino USA, which investigated the phenomenon in a new episode called “The Misinformation Web.” She interviewed some of the content creators in this “blob” of online vitriol and says there is almost no effective content moderation online, nor many reliable fact-checking sources in Spanish to counter the lies.

In a major piece for Mother Jones magazine on “Why Ballot Measures Are Democracy’s Last Line of Defense,” voting rights correspondent Ari Berman discusses abortion ballot measures in 10 states, important down-ballot races in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and the movement to abolish or reform the Electoral College.

Ari Berman, the voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, details how pro-Trump forces may try to throw out the results of the 2024 election if Kamala Harris wins, with a focus on the swing state of Georgia, the “epicenter” of Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. “It’s very dangerous to imagine what people who don’t believe in free and fair elections can do when given the power to oversee those very elections,” says Berman.

As voters across the United States head to the polls, we speak with New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg about how Donald Trump may try to preemptively declare victory and challenge election results. The former president has ramped up claims Democrats are “a bunch of cheats” and preemptively cast doubt on a win by Vice President Kamala Harris, following a similar playbook as 2020 when he baselessly claimed the election was stolen. Rutenberg spoke to pro-Trump election officials in battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania who say they are ready to refuse to certify local election results as part of a wide-ranging effort to throw the system into disarray. Rutenberg says after the failed insurrection of January 6, 2021, many in Trump’s orbit had a clear goal for 2024: “We have to go local.” He also discusses the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 that makes it harder to stop the final certification of results.

As voters across the United States head to the polls on Election Day, many face “a choice between two unsatisfactory candidates,” says Democracy Now! co-host Juan González. This choice is especially “excruciating” for those “who are outraged by our government’s continued support for Israel’s yearlong genocidal assault on Gaza.” He says the 2024 election has echoes of 1968, when many progressives sat out the election because of anger over Vietnam, but Richard Nixon’s victory and ultimate expansion of the war proved to be disastrous. “It would take many years for some of us to realize we had made a big mistake in sitting out that election. … Making these decisions at the time of election may be difficult but sometimes necessary to do to open up the way for possible change in the future.

• Harris and Trump Make Final Pitches in What Could Be One of Closest Elections in Modern U.S. History
• PA Judge Allows Elon Musk to Go Ahead with $1M Daily Giveaway Scheme for Swing State Voters
• Israel Kills 70+ People in Gaza over Past Day, Launches More Attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital
• Aid Entering Gaza at Just 6% of Pre-Genocide Deliveries as Israel Severs Ties with UNRWA
• "Not the End of the Semester": State Dept. Says Too Early to "Grade" Israel on North Gaza Actions
• At Least 4 West Bank Palestinians Killed as Israeli Soldiers and Settlers Continue Deadly Attacks
• Death Toll from Israeli Assault on Lebanon Tops 3,000 After More Deadly Strikes This Week
• Syria Blasts Israeli Airstrikes Near Damascus, Which Killed at Least 2 People
• Putin Hosts Pyongyang Officials as NATO Calls North Korean Troops in Ukraine War an "Escalation"
• White Ex-Cop Found Guilty of Murder in Andre Hill Shooting
• Two Ohio Officers Charged with Reckless Homicide in Killing of Frank Tyson
• Boeing Workers Approve New Contract with 43% Raises Over 4 Years, Ending Costly Weekslong Strike

All eyes are on Michigan as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris battle over undecided voters in the crucial swing state, including many of the state’s 200,000 Arab American and Muslim voters who reject both the Republican and Democratic parties’ stance on Israel and Palestine. We speak to Dearborn, Michigan’s Lebanese American Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who is the first Arab and Muslim mayor of the city, about many of his constituents’ loss of support for the Democratic Party and how the Arab American vote could impact the presidential election. Hammoud, like many Dearborn residents, has lost extended family to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, and describes the climate in the city as “a blanket of grief.” Having called for a ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel, he refused to meet with Trump last week, but has also declined to endorse Harris. Hammoud calls on voters to not sit out the election entirely, but to “vote their moral conscience, and says the citizens of Dearborn are “willing to put people over party, first and foremost.”

As Israel continues to block lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering northern Gaza, humanitarian organizations are describing its siege as “apocalyptic” and warning of mass Palestinian starvation and death. “The situation is absolutely desperate,” says Rachael Cummings of the aid group Save the Children International. Cummings joins us from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where aid organizations have been halted from entering the north. She responds to news of Israel’s bombing of a polio vaccination center in an area that had been marked for an official humanitarian pause, and the Knesset’s vote to ban the U.N. relief agency UNRWA.

As Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stirs up false claims of voter fraud ahead of Election Day, we look at the role of an increasingly “partisan” Federal Election Commission with former FEC general counsel Larry Noble, who explains why “voters of a lot of wealth have the ability to influence elections the way that the rest of us don’t.” As the influence of money in politics grows unchecked, he warns, it has the effect of “silencing the voter.” Noble also responds to multibillionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk’s $1 million giveaways to Pennsylvania voters and discusses the lasting impact of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision on campaign finance law.

As Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaign in Pennsylvania on the last day before the presidential election, false claims of voter fraud are spreading. “The truth is, none of these lies have been about election integrity. It’s always been about power,” says Neil Makhija, chair of the board of elections in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania — the battleground state that “could decide the election” — in a video essay featured by The New York Times. Makhija joins Democracy Now! to discuss his work expanding access to the vote and debunking the myth of mass voter fraud.

• Harris and Trump in Swing State of Pennsylvania on Last Day of Campaigning Before Election
• Protesters Center Abortion Rights in Preelection Women's March to White House
• Israel's Genocidal Assault on Northern Gaza Continues as Israel Severs Ties with UNRWA
• Progressive Reps Warn U.S. Involvement in Middle East Unlawful as Pentagon Sends More Arms to Israel
• "No Votes for Genocide": Protesters in NYC Decry U.S. Support for Israel Ahead of Nov. 5
• King Felipe Taunted by Angry Crowds as He Visits Flood-Stricken Valencia
• Int'l Biodiversity Conference Ends with New Indigenous U.N. Body, No Deal on Financing
• Moldova's EU-Aligned President Maia Sandu Wins Second Term
• Prosecutors in Republic of Georgia Investigating Election Fraud After Disputed Polls
• More Accounts from Sudan of Rape Being Used as Weapon of War, Genocide
• Bad Bunny Performs at Rally for Puerto Rico's Center-Left, Third-Party Coalition Alianza
• Ex-Cop Brett Hankison Found Guilty of Violating Breonna Taylor's Civil Rights, Faces Life in Prison
• Pioneering Music Producer Quincy Jones Has Died at 91

With just days to go before the November 5 presidential election, fears are growing that Republicans intend to interfere with the official results in order to install Donald Trump as president. At Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally, Trump said he had a “little secret” with House Speaker Mike Johnson that would have a “big impact” on the outcome, though neither he nor Johnson elaborated on what that entailed. Elie Mystal, the justice correspondent for The Nation, says the secret is almost certainly a plan to force a contingent election, whereby no candidate wins a majority of the Electoral College and the president is instead chosen by the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority. Mystal notes that even if Democrats challenge such an outcome, the case would still end up before a Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority that is likely to side with Trump.

We speak with The Nation's John Nichols in Wisconsin, where Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are spending a lot of their time in the closing days of the election in a tight battle for the state's 10 Electoral College votes. Nichols also discusses the battle for the Senate, with key races in Wisconsin and Nebraska; how New York races could tip control of the House to Democrats; and why Kamala Harris needs to expand her message beyond the threat of Trump’s authoritarianism. “At the doors, people want to talk about economics,” says Nichols.

Kamala Harris is blasting Donald Trump for vowing to protect women whether they “like it or not” at the same time he is calling for Republican Liz Cheney to be shot in the face. We get response from The Nation's abortion access correspondent Amy Littlefield and talk about 10 states with abortion rights on the ballot, including Arizona, Nevada, Florida, South Dakota and Missouri. Trump's remarks are a “succinct and clear definition of patriarchy,” says Littlefield. She argues the 2024 election will be decided in large part by white women and whether they will vote for abortion rights. Trump is “laying out the bargain that white patriarchy has offered for white women in this country,” says Littlefield. “He is saying, 'White women, we will protect you from Brown and Black men.'”

• At Least 95 Palestinians Are Killed in One Day as Israel Intensifies Attacks on Northern Gaza
• Israeli Forces Detain, Beat and Brand Palestinians After Deadly West Bank Raid
• Israel's Assault on Lebanon Destroys or Damages One-Quarter of All Buildings Near Border
• Peace Activists Celebrate as Barclays Sells Shares of Israeli Weapons Maker Elbit Systems
• In Arizona, Kamala Harris Promotes Women's Rights; Donald Trump Says Liz Cheney Should Be Shot
• Bill Clinton Sparks Outrage After Saying Israel Was "Forced" to Kill Civilians in Gaza
• Death Toll from Flash Flooding in Spain Soars to 158
• Papua New Guinea to Boycott U.N. Climate Talks After Calling Out "Empty Talk" of Polluters
• North Korea Test-Fires ICBM, Sends 10,000 Troops to Join Russian Forces Near Ukraine
• "I Have a Death Squad": Philippines Ex-President Rodrigo Duterte Admits to Extrajudicial Killings
• Botswana's President Concedes in Ruling Party's First Defeat Since Decolonization
• Brazil: Two Ex-Cops Who Confessed to Killing Marielle Franco Get Long Prison Terms

We speak with former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders presidential campaign staffer Nina Turner about how the 2024 election has left her and many voters “frustrated” and “exhausted.” While she is not endorsing a candidate, she denounces the white supremacist rhetoric of the Trump campaign, which she notes is “as American as apple pie.” Turner pushes back on comparisons of the Trump movement to the rise of Nazi Germany, which she argues threaten to whitewash the United States’ own anti-democratic history. “The unfulfilled promises of this country, the undealt-with anti-Blackness and other types of racism and bigotry have not been dealt with sufficiently,” she explains. “It is us, and we need to deal with it and not push it off on some other nation.”

“There can be no middle ground, not in this moment.” As the U.S. presidential race draws to a close, Bishop William Barber, the national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School and co-author of White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy, explains why he is endorsing Kamala Harris for president in his personal capacity. In contrast to Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric and policies that will benefit the rich, Barber says “we see clearly Harris trying to unify.” He makes a theological argument for opposing Trump and also discusses voting rights and access in his home state of North Carolina.

We are joined by U.N. special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, who says Israel is committing genocide on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Facing accusations of antisemitism from Israeli and U.S. officials, Albanese is in New York to present her report, titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” which finds that Israel’s genocide is founded on “ideological hatred” and “dehumanization” and “enabled through the various organs of the state,” and recommends that Israel be unseated from the United Nations over its conduct. She argues that Israel’s attacks on U.N. employees, including the killings of at least 230 U.N. staff in Gaza, its flagrant violations of U.N. resolutions and international law and the unique status of “the first settler-colonial genocide to be ever litigated before [an international] court” justify this unprecedented measure. Israel’s continued impunity, Albanese warns, “is the nail in the coffin of the U.N. Charter.”

• Israeli Attacks on Lebanon's Baalbek Kill 19 as Prime Minister Mikati Hopes for Ceasefire Soon
• Israel Is Committing War Crimes by Targeting Health Infrastructure, U.N. Peacekeepers in Lebanon
• Israel Attacks Kamal Adwan in North Gaza, Continues Deadly Strikes Across the Strip
• State Dept. Largely Ignoring 500 Reports of U.S. Weapons Used to Kill or Injure Palestinians in Gaza
• Elon Musk Faces Philly Hearing over Pro-Trump Super PAC's $1M Voter Giveaway Scheme
• SCOTUS Allows Virginia to Continue Voter Roll Purge Less Than One Week Before Election
• Supreme Court Rejects RFK Jr.'s Request to Remove Name from Ballot in Swing States
• House Speaker Mike Johnson Vows GOP Will Dismantle Obamacare, "Blowtorch" Regulations If Trump Wins
• Harris Hits Back After Trump Claims He'll Protect Women "Whether They Like It or Not"
• Texas Abortion Ban Led to Deaths of at Least Two Patients Denied Reproductive Care
• Man Who Plotted to Kidnap Nancy Pelosi and Attacked Her Husband Gets Life in Prison
• Mexican Journalists Paty Bunbury and Mauricio Cruz Solís Assassinated
• U.N. General Assembly Votes to Condemn U.S. Embargo on Cuba for 32nd Consecutive Year
• Trial Opens for Ex-Cops Accused of Murdering Rio de Janeiro Councilmember Marielle Franco