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Trump Says He Has Seen No Evidence of Cheating in the Election, but Nonetheless Sows Doubts
By Michael Gold
Reporting from Swannanoa, N.C.
Oct. 21, 2024
The former president, asked at a news conference in storm-damaged North Carolina if he had seen anything to suggest the election would be unfair, said, “I have not seen that.”
With early voting underway in many states, former President Donald J. Trump acknowledged Monday that he had seen no signs of cheating, even as he continued to sow doubts about the integrity of the election during a campaign swing through North Carolina.
Mr. Trump has long relentlessly contended that Democrats are conspiring to rig the election on Nov. 5, suggesting that his support is so strong that fraud is the only way he might lose. His accusation, for which he has not provided any details or proof, builds on his lie that he won the 2020 election. That claim is now at the heart of two criminal cases that accuse him of engaging in illegal activity in his effort to overturn the election four years ago.
At a news conference in a storm-damaged part of western North Carolina, Mr. Trump was asked by a reporter whether he had seen any evidence to suggest this year’s election would not be fair.
“Well, I haven’t,” Mr. Trump said. He added, referring to Democrats, “Unfortunately, I know the other side, and they are not good. But I have not seen that.”
Mr. Trump then looked behind him to Michael Whatley, his handpicked chairman of the Republican National Committee. Mr. Whatley said that although it was early in the voting process, the party was happy with what it was seeing across all 50 states. Mr. Trump’s allies have filed a flurry of lawsuits that suggest a broader effort to lay the groundwork to challenge the election results in November.
Mr. Trump’s comments came at the end of a news conference in Swannanoa, N.C, meant to highlight the region’s recovery from Hurricane Helene. Piles of debris and collapsing buildings lined the streets leading to Mr. Trump’s campaign stop, outside an auto repair shop. And yards away from where he was speaking, a car had been all but swept into a tree.
Mr. Trump at points insisted his visit was about more than politics. He began his remarks with a reflection on the devastation in the region, then he pivoted to making a jab at the Biden administration’s relief efforts.
“To see that is incredible,” he said of the destruction. “It’s the power of nature. Nothing you can do about it. But you’ve got to get a little bit better crew in to do a better job than has been done by the White House.” Then he expressed his sympathies to those who lost loved ones, were still displaced or were continuing to recover from the damage of the storm.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked the Biden administration over its response to the storm. Amid those criticisms, he and other conservative allies have amplified misinformation about the federal response, including a false claim he repeated on Monday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency helped pay for shelters for undocumented immigrants, depleting its money for disaster relief. The agency’s shelter program and the disaster relief fund have two separate streams of funding, and no disaster funding has been spent on those shelters.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/21/us/politics/trump-north-carolina-presser.html
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Philippine court jails 17 militants for life for mass kidnapping of tourists
By Jim Gomez
Oct. 21, 2024
MANILA, Philippines —
A Philippine court has convicted and sentenced to life 17 Islamic militants for kidnapping for ransom 21 people, including European tourists and Asian workers, from a dive resort in Malaysia more than two decades ago, officials said Monday.
The Filipino militants belonged to the small but violent Abu Sayyaf group.
Among those convicted by the Regional Trial Court in Taguig city, a suburb of the capital region, were two Abu Sayyaf leaders, Hilarion Santos and Redendo Dellosa, who had been included in a United Nations terrorism blacklist, the Department of Justice in Manila said.
The 17 were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of pardon after 30 years, according to justice officials.
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https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-10-21/philippine-court-jails-17-militants-for-life-for-mass-kidnapping-of-tourists
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