Ex-Republican Candidate Has Bonkers Defense for Stealing Ballots

A former Republican House candidate has been arrested and charged for stealing ballots in Indiana.

Larry L. Savage Jr. was charged with destroying or misplacing a ballot—a felony—and theft after he was captured on security footage nabbing two ballots in Madison County during testing of local voting machines, reported Fox59. The testing began at 10 a.m. on October 3 and was open to the public, according to court documents.

Several citizens were permitted to run “test” ballots through machines assigned to their county, including Savage, who was spotted on camera folding the ballots into his pocket while confirming with an election official that they were “absolutely, totally real ballots.” Although they weren’t official ballots, the ballots did not say “fake” or “sample” and were being tracked and counted by the state.

After pocketing the ballots, Savage leaned over to a woman streaming the event on Facebook Live, telling her that there was a “fucked-up count.” Upon exiting, Savage approached a man outside the government facility and showed him the ballots in his pocket before the unidentified man patted him on his back.

After Savage left, the woman confronted election officials about whether they were missing any ballots, reported Fox59. Savage then joined the woman’s livestream, commenting via his account “Cardkiller57” that the facility was “3 ballots short.”

“Dontvtake [sic] anything,” Savage wrote in another comment.

Ironically, Savage had framed himself as a champion of election integrity in online forums.

When questioned by police, Savage admitted that he had taken the ballots but claimed that a woman at the facility had given him permission to do so. He insisted that he “wasn’t trying to steal from nobody.”

After being confronted with evidence revealing that he had never asked for permission to take the ballots, Savage admitted that he had lied.

“If you go to Payless, or go wherever, it says sample and you usually can take a sample,” Savage said, according to Fox59. “So that is the way I took it. I thought they were fake fucking ballots.”

Speaking with Fox59, Savage claimed that he was an elected official and that he was “just trying to fight for our country.” (Savage, a businessman, came sixth out of eight candidates in the Republican primary.)

Madison County Prosecutor Rodney Cummings said that Savage’s act was a deliberate attempt to “undermine our election process.”

“This was an act that feeds into that concern that a lot of voters have about the integrity of our process,” Cummings told Fox59. “And it simply wasn’t necessary. This is corruption. This is corruption at its core. To undermine our election process is unacceptable. And our office needed to take action.”

Donald Trump and his allies have corroded and undermined trust in the integrity of U.S. voting since he lost the presidential election in 2020, refusing to admit and rejecting mountains of evidence that the election was not “stolen” from him. Last week, Trump issued his first call to arms for the 2024 race, preemptively claiming on Truth Social that the November election is already rigged, mere days into early voting.

Trump fleetingly acknowledged in September that he did, factually, lose the 2020 election. But his insistence on Friday that he would definitely win the 2024 race came with a threat: that anyone working for the other side of the aisle—from attorneys to election officials and donors—will face consequences when he does.

Donald Trump is already constructing his election fraud theory if he loses the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday morning, Trump made a baseless accusation that there is widespread voter fraud going on in the state. “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught, at large scale levels rarely seen before,” wrote the Republican nominee on Truth Social. “REPORT CHEATING TO AUTHORITIES. Law Enforcement must act, NOW!”

Trump’s alarmist rhetoric about election integrity in the swing state appears to only be escalating. On Tuesday, speaking in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Trump said he intended to sue Bucks County, just north of Philadelphia, for allegedly turning away voters who waited in long lines to receive mail-in ballots.

“There’s been lines like this for days across counties in PA,” wrote James Blair, the Trump campaign’s political director, on X .” Only for elections officials to come out and push people out of line and tell them to come back. Voter suppression!”

But the reality is different from the Trump team’s hallucination. “Contrary to what is being depicted on social media, if you are in line by 5 p.m. for an on-demand mail-in ballot application, you will have the opportunity to submit your application for a mail-in ballot,” wrote Bucks County on the Bucks County Government Facebook page.

Earlier this month, a viral video appeared to show election workers in Bucks County ripping up mail-in ballots that had been marked for Trump. However, on Friday, the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, issued a joint statement explaining that the video was part of a Russian election disinformation plot.

This follows Trump’s similar claims earlier in the week, in which he singled out York and Lancaster counties. In a post late Monday night, Trump spread lies about thousands of fraudulent ballots and voter registrations, even making the widely inaccurate claim that one person had filled out 2,600 forms, which he again reiterated at the Allentown rally.

The reality is that those counties are going through their normal proceedings of verifying last-minute voter registrations and mail-in ballot applications. Any concerns were in fact already raised to law enforcement, according to county officials.

But in a state whose Republicans are nearly all election deniers, Trump’s flagrant lies don’t bode well for a close race come Election Day.

Suppressing votes just got a lot easier for a key Trump ally in Virginia.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday voted 6-3 to allow the Virginia election commission to resume a controversial voter purge program that has already wiped the names of 1,600 people from its voter rolls. The state says the program is designed to remove non-citizens, but two lower courts previously found the program is likely illegal.

All three of the court’s liberal justices—Justices Sonia Sotamayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—dissented. 

Virginia’s Trump-loving governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed the controversial program into law and appealed legal challenges all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court made its decision Wednesday in a one-page order with no reasoning for the decision included.

The state of Virginia argued that the 1,600 people removed from the state’s voter rolls didn’t provide adequate proof of citizenship when registering to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles. But voting rights advocates argued Youngkin’s program violates the National Voter Registration Act’s ban on clearing voter rolls too close to Election Day.

In the end, the conservatives on the court decided to help out Republicans in the state. And while this decision is troubling, it is perhaps unsurprising for a majority that includes Judges Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito, each of whom have been chipping away at voting rights for some time now. 

This is a notable win for Republicans in an important state. It also shows that the highest court in the land will continue to reinforce Trump’s fear mongering about noncitizen voting. And if 1,600 voters sounds marginal, Virginia’s state legislature was decided by just one vote in 2017. It’s again clear that Republicans will go to absurd lengths to help Trump—and the rest of their party—win.

This story has been updated.

Trust in Democratic institutions is at an all-time low, and at least one man is celebrating the downfall.

According to a Gallup poll published earlier this month, public trust in the executive office and the legislative branches of government is practically abysmal, with just 40 and 34 percent of Americans, respectively, believing that the institutions are trustworthy.

But somehow, the news media got even more demerits, with confidence in the information apparatus hitting its lowest point on record this year. Just 31 percent of Americans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of faith in the industry’s ability to report news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

On Tuesday, Donald Trump celebrated his role in creating that sentiment, bragging to a crowd in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that it was, largely, thanks to him.

“That is a lot of fake news. When they lose their final ounce of credibility, they’ll probably turn good again, because they’re losing so much credibility,” Trump said.

“You know when I first started running, their approval rating—the very, very beginning, before, maybe, I even started—it was like 92 percent favorable rating. You know what it is now? Twelve percent,” he continued. “I drove it down!”

“I drove it down, numbers. I’m very proud of it. I’ve exposed them as being fake,” he added.

And while his exact numbers may be wrong, Trump’s sentiment is, actually, correct. America’s trust in the media disintegrated in 2016 during his first run for the White House, when Trump routinely platformed the notion that then–Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was receiving more positive media coverage than he was. He also leveraged attacks on the media to undermine the industry’s coverage of his myriad scandals, including his criminal trials.

That year, confidence in news dropped by eight percentage points—the most in a single year since the metric was first recorded—and for the first time in U.S. history sank below 40 percent. It was dragged down, predominantly, by Republican respondents, whose faith in the media plummeted from 32 percent in 2015 to just 14 percent in 2016, while surveyed Democrats and registered independents reported relatively minor dents in their confidence.

Gallup began asking the question in 1972 and has seen the nation’s trust in the news media slowly drift down since it reached an all-time high of 72 percent in 1976, when investigative pieces on Watergate and the Vietnam War rocked the nation.

This year has shown the disheartening effects of that loss of trust: Newspapers and stations alike have laid off thousands of journalists, with dozens of major outlets downsizing or outright folding as the business side of the industry struggles to keep up with the market, the changing technological landscape (i.e., artificial intelligence), and rapidly changing leadership.

The same Republicans who were just yesterday telling America to grow thicker skin are clutching their pearls over a comment from President Joe Biden on Donald Trump’s supporters.

The collective meltdown comes after Biden spoke on a Get Out the Vote Zoom call hosted by Voto Latino on Tuesday evening, where he denounced the comedian at Trump’s rally who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

“Donald Trump has no character. He doesn’t give a damn about the Latino community.… Just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage,” Biden said on the call. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s—his hatred, his demonization of Latinos, it’s unconscionable, and it’s un-American.”

Trump and his biggest fans quickly jumped on the remark, claiming that Biden meant “supporters” plural, while the former president said that he was specifically referring to Hinchcliffe.

“While I am running a campaign of positive solutions to save America, Kamala Harris is running a campaign of hate,” former President Donald Trump posted on X early Wednesday morning. “Now, on top of everything, Joe Biden calls our supporters ‘garbage.’ You can’t lead America if you don’t love the American People.”

“This is disgusting,” J.D. Vance wrote on X. “Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half of the country. There’s no excuse for this. I hope Americans reject it.”

Senator John Cornyn—who remained suspiciously quiet as Trump and Vance spread made-up rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets—called the comments “despicable.” Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde even used it in a campaign ad equating it to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment in 2016.

Even if Biden had meant “supporters” plural, this kind of moral grandstanding is just disingenuous. This is a campaign that has referred to the vice president as a “devil,” said she had “pimp handlers,” made up pet-eating rumors that led to bomb threats shutting down Springfield, Ohio, and then still has the nerve to tell everyone to “stop getting so offended” when people get appropriately offended. They don’t have much room to talk.

Despite the evidence, Donald Trump is still trying to convince voters that no one cared about the racist joke made about Puerto Rico at his Madison Square Garden rally.

During an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening, the Republican presidential nominee claimed that he has “really great relationships” with “Hispanics”—so much so that they shower him with physical affection every time he runs into them.

“Every time I go outside, I see somebody from Puerto Rico, they give me a hug and a kiss,” Trump said.

But in the same breath, Trump recalled the apparently fond memory of throwing paper towels to a crowd of pleading Puerto Ricans after the U.S. territory was devastated by Hurricane Maria, leaving the vast majority of the island without power, food, water, and medical aid.

“I got in trouble for that too, because we were having fun. We had a lot of people, and I was throwing paper towels to the back, they were all having fun,” Trump told Fox before complaining that the media negatively covered the stunt. (At the time, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz called Trump’s 17-minute meeting “abominable” and described him as the “miscommunicator-in-chief.”)

The comments are a continued effort by the Trump campaign to clean up the former president’s image after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe joked at Trump’s Manhattan campaign stop that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.”

“I don’t even know who put him in. And I can’t imagine it’s a big deal. I’ve done more for Puerto Rico than any president, I think that’s ever, that’s ever been president,” Trump told Fox on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Trump’s campaign is working overtime to separate the  former president’s image from the racist joke, which has drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. Other Republicans have also spoken out about the gross insult, including Senator Rick Scott and Representative Maria Elvira Salazar.

During an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, Trump made the whole situation worse by outright denying knowing anything about the unsavory joke, telling the network that he hadn’t even heard the line and that he didn’t know the comedian before “someone put him up there.”

Trump’s failure to personally condemn Hinchcliffe’s comments has also cost him with Puerto Rican voters across the country—particularly in Pennsylvania, where Puerto Rico–connected nonpartisan groups are circulating a letter urging members to vote against Trump.

Only one week from Election Day, Republicans’ closing message is that they plan to take away people’s health care, specifically the Affordable Care Act, if the party retains control of the House.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told the crowd at a rally in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on Monday that “health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda.”

“When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table,” Johnson said at the rally meant to be in support of Republican Representative Ryan Mackenzie.

One person at the rally, in a reference to the health care bill passed by Democrats under President Obama, asked Johnson, “No Obamacare?”

“No Obamacare,” Johnson replied, rolling his eyes according to NBC News. “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”

“If you take government bureaucrats out of the health care equation and you have doctor-patient relationships, it’s better for everybody. More efficient, more effective,” Johnson added. “That’s the free market. Trump’s going to be for the free market.”

Johnson later promised to take a “blowtorch to the regulatory state.”

Johnson’s promise to ax Obamacare isn’t an offhand remark. Earlier this month, Senator Tom Cotton also promised that if Donald Trump wins the election and the GOP takes control of the Senate, Republicans could “make health care more affordable, more tailored and more personalized than the one-size-fits-all option.”

During his four years as president, Trump tried and failed to repeal the ACA, even though the GOP controlled the House and the Senate for two years. During his presidential debate with Kamala Harris last month, Trump reiterated his desire to get rid of the health care law, but when pressed, said he only had “concepts of a plan.”

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has elaborated on the Trump administration’s current plan, which is to undo much of the ACA’s framework, including its prohibition on health insurance companies’ ability to charge more for preexisting conditions. Johnson’s and Cotton’s comments reveal that he has allies among the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. The question is whether voters want to elect Trump and allow the GOP to reverse the health care reforms of the previous decade.

Robert F. Kennedy’s bewildering campaign has shot itself in the foot for the umpteenth time.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 8-1 against RFK Jr.’s request to be removed from presidential ballots in Michigan and Wisconsin. Justice Neil Gorsuch was the only dissenting vote.

The third-party spoiler turned Trump advocate has been pathetically attempting to help the former president by removing his name from swing state ballots, while remaining on the ballot elsewhere. But even the Supreme Court has had enough of the stunt.

Kennedy’s lawyers tried to argue that his name remaining on the ballot was “in violation of his First Amendment rights,” and that his recent advocacy of former President Trump was being “compromised.” Wisconsin, however, argued that the request would require absurd tasks like handcrafting and placing “millions of stickers.”

Michigan too warned that early voting is already underway and it would be impossible to reprint and redistribute ballots just one week before the election. Michigan reported that over 1.5 million voters have already returned absentee ballots with Kennedy’s name as a voting option, and 263,000 people have voted early.

The court agreed—it was far too late. In two separate orders, the Supreme Court rejected RFK Jr.’s emergency requests.

Kennedy remaining on the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin is all but guaranteed to take more voters from Trump than from Harris in those crucial swing states.

This story has been updated.

Team Trump continues to reveal that the only thing on their minds for their first 100 days in office will be revenge.

Speaking with Vaughn Hillyard at Donald Trump’s incendiary Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, billionaire CEO and co-chair of Trump’s transition team Howard Lutnick discussed what went wrong with Trump’s first Cabinet and how he’ll ensure that his next is “the best of the best.”

Lutnick also dismissed Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly, former Defense Secretary James Mattis, and former Vice President Mike Pence, each of whom have deemed Trump an authoritarian threat, as merely “disgruntled former employees.”

“[Trump] thought they were generals. He should’ve realized they were Democrat generals. They moved against him. Think about this—Mattis, Kelly, and [former Secretary of State Rex] Tillerson met every other morning to try to keep Donald Trump away from what they wanted to do.… That’s treason, it’s just wrong.”

Casually suggesting that critics of the former president should be charged with treason is yet another massive red flag that has become all too common within the Trump campaign. And while it’s beside the point, none of the aforementioned “disgruntled former employees” are Democrats. Mattis is unaffiliated with a party, Kelly, is a registered independent, and Tillerson is a lifelong Republican.

Lutnick’s threat aligns with the numerous other threats of prosecution that Trump has levied throughout his campaign. In recent weeks, he has begun warning that he’ll use the military to go after the “enemy within,” even naming targets he has in mind. And while some Trump supporters think that this is all just talk, others, like Lutnick, are taking Trump’s words and running with them.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was dealt a setback in his efforts to ban TV advertisements for a state ballot initiative expanding abortion rights.

A federal judge, Mark Walker, on Tuesday extended a temporary restraining order that blocks the state government from taking action against the ads for 14 days or until he rules on his initial preliminary injunction, likely delaying his decision until after Election Day on November 5, when the initiative will be decided by Florida voters.

DeSantis, through lawyers at the Florida Department of Health, has threatened to charge TV stations that run the ads, sending out cease and desist letters to them after the stations started running the commercials earlier this month. Brian Barnes, a lawyer for the department, said in federal court Tuesday prior to Walker’s ruling that one of the ads was confusing and could stop mothers from seeking emergency care.

Florida currently bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The ballot initiative, Amendment 4, would increase access to abortion until fetal viability, typically considered to be around 24 weeks. DeSantis’s decision to go after the TV stations that have run ads supporting the amendment has already led to backlash from within the state government, with one lawyer in the Department of Health, John Wilson, resigning over DeSantis’s authoritarian tactics.

“A man is nothing without his conscience,” Wilson wrote in his letter.

DeSantis has also used other state powers to fight against the ballot initiative, using his official X account to spread misinformation, even as two hurricanes raged through Florida. The state has also sent police officers to the homes of people who signed a petition supporting the ballot initiative, which DeSantis has defended by invoking conservative fears of voter fraud. But, as Walker ruled Tuesday, there are constitutional lines the governor can’t cross.