POLITICO NIGHTLY: Another rough day for election deniers

 

View in browser   BY CALDER MCHUGH A voter casts a ballot during Kentucky Primary Elections at Deer Park Baptist Church in Louisville. | Jon Cherry/Getty Images FRAUD FAIL — Many of the most prominent 2020 election deniers and conspiracists crashed and burned in the 2022 midterm elections, when voters rejected their bids to win office. Now, as Donald Trump launches his bid to return to the White House, comes more evidence that the electorate has limited tolerance for baseless claims of election fraud and allegations that the 2020 race was rigged. In Republican primaries in Kentucky and Pennsylvania last night, GOP candidates who made election denial a centerpiece of their campaign had a rough time. Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, a first-term incumbent Republican who vigorously rejected election fraud narratives and attempted to expand voting access in Kentucky, easily dispatched Stephen Knipper, who embarked on a tour of the state to “Restore Election Integrity.” Knipper, who claimed fraud in elections happened largely through hacked voting machines , won a little over a quarter of the vote — a sign that there is a residual base of support for election deniers in a GOP primary, but not nearly enough to win even in a conservative state. “Kentucky Republicans rejected those who malign our county clerks and poll workers with conspiratorial nonsense,” Adams said in a statement after his victory. In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, Republicans who rejected election denialism turned back candidates who supported Trump’s claims in three important contests. State appeals court Judge Patricia McCullough, who voted to halt the state’s certification of its 2020 presidential election results (before later being overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court), lost a primary for a seat on the state Supreme Court to Carolyn Carluccio, a Montgomery County judge who was endorsed by the state party. National Republicans also got in on the fight, with the national Republican State Leadership Committee spending $500,000 on advertisements supporting Carluccio’s campaign in addition to $250,000 spent by Carluccio’s campaign in the final filing period. McCullough’s campaign spent less than $1,000 in the filing period before the election . The backing from state and national Republicans suggests that they were intent on keeping McCullough out of the general election; for her part, Carluccio has ducked questions on whether election results in 2020 and 2022 in Pennsylvania were fair . McCullough made her record as the “only judge in 2020 in the presidential election in the entire country” to order a certification halt a central part of her appeal to voters . Republicans in Montgomery County — a suburban Philadelphia Democratic stronghold and the third-most populous county in the state — also jettisoned County Commissioner Joe Gale, who objected to the county’s approval of presidential election results in 2020 . Gale finished in third place in the Republican primary, behind two challengers who were both endorsed by the Montgomery County Republican Committee . Even in Trump-friendly Washington County in western Pennsylvania, a leading election denier came up short in her bid for county commissioner. Ashley Duff, who used public comment sessions during county commission meetings to air conspiracy theories and won the support of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell — one of the nation’s most famous election denialists — came in third place in the Republican primary with only 16 percent of the vote. That weak performance came in a county where Trump won by a landslide in 2020. “Conspiratorial nonsense,” as Adams, the Kentucky secretary of state called it, has some really devoted fans. But, judging from Tuesday’s primary election results, it’s not a majority — not even in Republican primaries. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh .   WHAT'D I MISS? — Trump lawyer in classified documents probe resigns: Tim Parlatore, one of the lawyers defending Trump against special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the handling of documents marked as classified, has resigned from the former president’s legal team . “It’s personal and it’s got nothing to do with my belief in the strength of the case,” Parlatore told POLITICO this morning. CNN first reported his departure from Trump’s legal team. — Blumenthal: AI deepfake ‘one of the more scary moments’ in Senate hearing history: Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) commenced a Senate hearing on AI Tuesday morning, which featured testimony from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, with a faked voice recording that was written by ChatGPT and vocalized by an audio application trained on Blumenthal’s Senate floor speeches. The recording outlined the reason for the hearing and warned of when “technology outpaces regulation,” possibly leading to misinformation and the exploitation of personal data. “If you closed your eyes at the beginning of the hearing, you couldn’t have told that we were playing a voice clone of myself in introducing the hearing,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said on MSNBC this morning. “It was eerie, even creepy.” — Biden gives clearest indication to date he’s willing to make a critical debt ceiling compromise: President Joe Biden today left the door open to expanding some work requirements as part of a debt ceiling deal, committing only to opposing new restrictions that affect health care programs. “I’m not going to accept any work requirements that’s going to impact on medical health needs of people,” he said, before adding that “it’s possible” a deal could expand work rules for other federal programs. Biden downplayed the significance of adding more work requirements, insisting that any new measures would not be “anything of consequence.”   GET READY FOR GLOBAL TECH DAY: Join POLITICO Live as we launch our first Global Tech Day alongside London Tech Week on Thursday, June 15. Register now for continuing updates and to be a part of this momentous and program-packed day! From the blockchain, to AI, and autonomous vehicles, technology is changing how power is exercised around the world, so who will write the rules? REGISTER HERE .     NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 FIGHTING WORDS — Trump is going after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after the governor’s two endorsed candidates lost in Tuesday’s GOP primary . “[Daniel Cameron] had my Complete and Total Endorsement. The DeSanctimonious backed candidate came in a DISTANT third. Ron’s magic is GONE! He also lost, shockingly, in Jacksonville last night (Mayor),” Trump said in a Truth Social post today. Cameron, who earned Trump’s endorsement early on, won the Republican nomination for Kentucky governor Tuesday night. DeSantis endorsed Kelly Craft, who looked likely to finish third in the GOP primary. “The Trump culture of winning is alive and well in Kentucky,” Cameron said at the top of his victory speech. FINAL DRAFT — DeSantis today signed into law several of the more contentious proposals of Florida’s legislative session , including a ban on transgender minors receiving gender-affirming care and expansions to state’s parental rights rules panned by critics as “Don’t Say Gay.” In one swoop, DeSantis enacted these bills and other GOP priorities that were sought by the presumptive presidential candidate like making it a criminal offense for someone to use certain bathrooms that don’t align with their sex at birth and blocking children from attending adult-themed drag shows. KANSAS ELECTION CHANGES — New election laws and an ‘expensive’ presidential preference primary are among some of the biggest changes ahead of the 2024 election in Kansas , according to KSNT. The March 19 presidential preference primary opens up a process, which is usually run by state political parties, to all registered Democrats and Republicans next year. Unaffiliated voters would be able to participate by registering with one of the parties prior to voting. In addition to the primary, one of the new election laws going into effect makes a little over 100 changes to state election law, according to the secretary of state’s office.     AROUND THE WORLD The 'Meta' sign displayed outside of headquaters in Menlo Park, Calif. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images RECORD PRIVACY PENALTY   — Meta is expected to face a record privacy fine on Monday when Ireland’s data protection watchdog confirms the social media platform mishandled people’s data when shipping it to the United States, according to two people with direct knowledge of the upcoming decision, write Mark Scott and Clothilde Goujard . POLITICO was not able to confirm the size of the record-setting penalty, which will likely be more than the €746 million fine that Amazon was forced to pay in 2021 for similarly flouting the European Union’s privacy standards, the people added, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak about internal deliberations. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission will publish its ruling on Monday; it is also expected to include demands that Meta’s Facebook stop using complex legal instruments to move EU data to the U.S., called standard contract clauses, in the fall. The upcoming decision dates back to revelations in 2013 from Edward Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, who disclosed that American authorities had repeatedly accessed people’s information via tech companies like Facebook and Google. Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy campaigner, filed a legal challenge against Facebook for failing to protect his privacy rights, setting off a decade-long battle over the legality of moving EU data to the U.S. TRAGEDY IN NIGERIA — Four people were killed in Nigeria after assailants attacked a convoy carrying U.S. and Nigerian officials, the State Department confirmed today. “We condemn in the strongest terms this attack,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “We will work closely with our Nigerian law enforcement colleagues in seeking to bring those responsible to justice.” The assailants attacked the convoy on Tuesday. It included five U.S. Embassy officials and four members of the Nigeria Police Force, in the Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra state. The State Department did not provide the nationalities of those killed, but The Associated Press said they were two of the Embassy’s “local workers” and two police officers. A motive for the attack is still unclear, but there is “no indication” the U.S. officials were intentionally targeted, the State Department said. The region is the site of intense separatist violence, according to the AP.   DON’T MISS POLITICO’S HEALTH CARE SUMMIT : The Covid-19 pandemic helped spur innovation in health care, from the wide adoption of telemedicine, health apps and online pharmacies to mRNA vaccines. But what will the next health care innovations look like? Join POLITICO on Wednesday June 7 for our Health Care Summit to explore how tech and innovation are transforming care and the challenges ahead for access and delivery in the United States. REGISTER NOW .     NIGHTLY NUMBER 18 percent The percentage of Americans who said they had a “great deal” of confidence in the Supreme Court in 2022, according to new results from the 2022 General Social Survey conducted by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research . That number represents an all-time low since GSS began recording data on trust in the Supreme Court in 1973. Forty-six percent of respondents said they have “only some” trust in the Supreme Court, while 36 percent reported “hardly any.” RADAR SWEEP SAW IT ON TIKTOK — Around New York City, restaurant owners’ inboxes are filling up with direct messages from influencers . “Let’s collab,” the DMs inevitably say. What they mean is: I would like a free meal at your establishment, and in return I will post photos of it on my Instagram or TikTok. Some restaurateurs are leaning in, arguing that the results are great for business. They’re even changing their menus, suggesting that chefs find the dish that can go viral. But what happens to a restaurant when every other table has someone taking flash photos and videos of the food throughout the entire meal? Ezra Marcus reports for Grubstreet. PARTING IMAGE On this date in 1968: Students from the Sorbonne University in Paris in front of the Renault Plant in the suburb of Billancourt, France. The students marched to express their solidarity with the striking Renault workers. | AP Photo Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .     Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh Katherine Long @katherinealong   FOLLOW US

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