Trump Rehashes Election Fraud Claims, Politics Of Trump's Speech, Texas Flooding

[00:00] Hey. Yep. It is Friday. It is Friday. Good to see you, Friday. I love watching you and seeing you every week. Me too. I like when we get here. We made it. [00:10] Busy Newsweek. We've also now made it almost a year since Congress voted to eliminate federal funding for public media. Yeah, that's right. And that's because of supporters just like you who continue to stand with us. We know that a free press doesn't just happen. Rigorous reporting takes money and work, and we, the public, have to protect it. So please join the community of people who power this work and make a donation today at donate.npr.org. Happy Friday. Let's get to the news. Let's get to the show. [00:40] you [00:42] President Trump said he was releasing new evidence of widespread election fraud in his speech last night. But experts who reviewed the documents say there's nothing new, just a rehash of old false claims about the 2020 election Trump lost. I'm E. Martinez, that's Leila Faddle, and this is Up First from NPR News. [01:02] The president also used his primetime address to push his election safety bill, which would require proof of citizenship to vote. [01:10] Approval numbers at their lowest in the midterms approaching. Why is he choosing now to push a bill that doesn't have the numbers in Congress? And severe flooding hit Texas's hill country. Last year, floods there killed more than 130 people. This time, new warning sirens and hard lessons may have saved lives. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

[01:32] Bye. [01:37] The NPR Network has always been powered by the people it serves, not by shareholders or special interests, but by people like you and me who believe in a free and independent press. One year ago this month, Congress eliminated federal funding for public media. Together, we continue the kind of journalism that we, the public, rely on. Please support this work today at plus.npr.org. [02:01] This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, President Trump, it is the greatest threat to our country, is trying to tie Democrats to communism, including World War Two or even 9-11. Both he and his team feel this is resonating with his base. Why the White House is pushing communism as a new line of attack ahead of this year's midterms. Listen now on the NPR Politics Podcast. [02:25] Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air. Hey, take a break from the 24-hour news cycle with us and listen to long-form interviews with your favorite authors, actors, filmmakers, comedians, and musicians, the people making the art that nourishes us and speaks to our times. So listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY. [02:46] For days, President Trump and his team have teased a bombshell announcement on election integrity. Trump gave a primetime address on it last night, but election experts say the speech and the newly unclassified documents that came with it provided no new evidence of widespread fraud. Mostly, it was a rehash of facts and claims about America's voting system that were already known. NPR voting correspondent Miles Parks has been up all night going through those documents, and he joins me now to talk through it. Hi, Miles. Hey, good morning.

[03:16] Good morning. Okay, so the president has been making false claims for almost six years now that the election he lost in 2020 was rigged. Last night, he gave a speech about voting integrity. Was it more of the same? It was. I mean, he hit on a bunch of the themes that will sound really familiar to anyone who's heard the president over the last few years. The idea that voting machines can't be trusted, the idea that non-citizens are voting in mass in American elections, shadowy schemes by foreign governments to try to influence voting, that sort of thing. [03:46] through all of these documents that the White House published, and it's not really clear what is actually new here that impacts our understanding of the security of America's elections. I talked with Adrian Fontes after the speech. He's Arizona's top voting official. He's a Democrat. Here's how he described it. I kind of felt a little bit cheated. I was expecting some kind of delicious bombshell that we might be able to investigate, but instead I got a [04:10] a rehash of the same grievance. Fontes was struck by how closely all these classified documents aligned with what was already public about the 2020 election. So tell us a little bit more, like the details here. What's actually in these documents? So I mean, take the idea about America's voting systems being vulnerable to hacking, for instance, the president said Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure. They're vulnerable, referring to the machines, and they're easily compromised. But the documents released really [04:40] Like what?

[05:10] has worked to shine a light on some of the same problems that Trump is now focusing on. Two things can be true at the same time, that we have ignored vulnerabilities in our voting systems for a long time. [05:22] There is no evidence that the election was rigged in 2020, and everything that has been put forth purporting to provide that evidence always falls apart like a cheap suit. You know, even with those vulnerabilities, the bottom line is that almost everyone in the United States votes on a paper ballot, and those paper ballots after the 2020 election were investigated and audited over and over again, and widespread fraud was never found. [05:52] and worked to undermine his election campaign in 2020. Is that true? It is, but it's also not really news. You know, at the time in 2020, the intelligence community publicly said that China preferred Joe Biden as a candidate, although there were some public disagreements on what the country was actually willing to do in terms of pushing that preference. And on the voter data, this is actually a great example of something that sounds really scary, but actually didn't shock people who work in elections. [06:22] And it was publicly known that China has long been interested in accumulating information on American voters and candidates. David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation and Research says that sort of activity just has no effect on actual votes. Having the voter data itself doesn't allow you to change anything. I can have my kids class list, but that doesn't mean I can change the grades of everybody in the class.

[06:52] process. And experts like Becker expect to see more of that as the midterms get closer. NPR's Miles Parks, thank you for that reporting, Miles. Thank you. There are also the politics of President Trump's speech. The president continues to face low approval. The war in Iran is ramping back up and economic conditions are not really improving. Here to walk us through those politics is NPR senior political correspondent Tamara Keith. Hi, Tam. Good morning. Good morning. Why is the president renewing his claims that U.S. [07:22] are not secure or that the system lacks integrity. [07:26] President Trump has questioned the fairness of every election going back at least to 2016, an election he won. Now we're in another election year. The courts have blocked his executive actions to change election administration. And he has tried every lever he can to push Congress to pass the Save America Act, which would, among other things, require proof of citizenship to vote. [07:56] of housing in, quote, protest about the Save America Act. That didn't move the needle. So last night he commanded the national airwaves in a way that only a president can to once again push for it. Addressing this crisis of election security demands that Congress must pass the Save America Act. [08:20] How easy is that to do unless you want to cheat?

[08:25] The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat. OK, that's the president making that claim, doing a call to action. How likely is that to affect the Save America Act's chances of passage? It doesn't have the vote it needs to pass in the Senate. Yes, Republicans control that chamber, but it can't get past a filibuster without Democratic votes. And even if Republicans tried procedural moves to get around the filibuster, it doesn't look like there is enough Republican support to pass this either. [08:55] And here's the thing. This is an election year and there are a lot of Republicans on the ballot who would much rather focus on the issue voters repeatedly say is most important to them, the cost of living. Did the president speak to those affordability concerns? Very briefly, he went through sort of our greatest hits reel of the first 18 months back in office. No tax on tips, a blockbuster stock market. There was a brief mention of a recent inflation report that showed some improvement. [09:25] Iran, which has driven up prices. And if you just step back here, it's remarkable. If you told me the president was going to give an address to the nation from the White House this week, a week where the Iran ceasefire broke down and he has ordered nightly bombing raids on Iranian targets, the assumption would be that he needed to address this escalation. But that is not what he did. [09:55] Yes, I mean, he's still talking about 2020. The phrase he used in that clip we played, unless you want to cheat, is the president of the United States laying the groundwork to say that the elections this fall, where Republicans are widely expected to take losses, won't be fair.

[10:25] And that might be self-defeating. Trump needs voters who often sit out midterms but show up for him to vote in big numbers for Republican members of Congress not named Trump. [10:35] And PR's Tamara Keith, thank you so much for that reporting. [10:38] You're welcome. [10:48] At least two people have died and hundreds have been rescued in catastrophic flooding in Texas this week. [10:54] This is the second year in a row that Texas' Hill Country has flooded. Just over a year ago, 130 people died over the Fourth of July weekend, including children and counselors from a summer camp. Chelsea Zhu is a reporter with member station KUT in Austin, and she joins me now. Good morning, Chelsea. [11:11] Good morning. So tell us about what's been going on across the state. So the major flooding we've seen has been a culmination of several days of very heavy rain across large parts of Texas, especially the south central region. Some storms have been slow moving, dropping heavy rain in some of the same areas that have already seen a lot of rain in the days before, which has made flooding more likely. Some towns have seen as much as 20 inches of rain or more since the start of the week. The weather has also been unpredictable. There was even a tornado [11:41] that touched down in San Antonio on Wednesday. [11:44] Here's what Chief Nim Kidd with the Texas Division of Emergency Management had to say yesterday as the state prepared for another round of storms. The way that this weather pattern is setting up is difficult for the models that the meteorologists use to tell us exactly where it's going to fall and exactly how much it's going to fall. Chelsea, there's been more rain this year than last year, but...

[12:04] We have fortunately seen fewer deaths. What's different? It's hard to say for sure right now, since we're still assessing the damage, but a few different things could contribute to that. One is, again, that it's been a full week of rain for some of these places that has built up to this severe flooding. So people have been able to see this develop over days. I also think people across the state are more aware of the risks after the deadly floods last year. [12:35] And after last year, Texas lawmakers also made it a priority to pass flood safety measures, some of which are already in effect. That includes new flood warning sirens in the region and updated emergency plans for summer camps. What are the people in flooded areas saying about their experiences? Many of my colleagues went out yesterday talking to people during the flooding, and it was inevitable that last year's flooding was front and center in people's minds. [13:04] life. In the tape, you can hear the Guadalupe River rushing in the background. It's sad. It's just like a desert. It hits you. [13:12] You know, it hits it pretty hard. [13:14] Especially when you go right by Camp Mystic, something happened pretty bad there. [13:22] He's talking about the girls' summer camp where 25 campers and two counselors died in the flooding last year. He also mentioned that it feels like flooding has been happening more often, which is true at a broader level because of climate change, which scientists say has made record-breaking rain much more likely in the U.S. and has contributed to more frequent and severe flooding.

[13:52] you to recovery over the next couple of days. Chelsea Zhu is a reporter with member station KUT in Austin. Thank you, Chelsea. Thank you. [14:05] And that's Up First for Friday, July 17th. I'm Leila Faldin. And I'm E. Martinez. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ben Swayze, Megan Pratz, Acacia Squires, Mohamed Elbardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hainas. Our technical director is Carly Strange. And our executive producer is Jay Shaler. Join us again on Monday. [14:33] you [14:37] Thank you. [14:50] This message comes from MidiHealth. Co-founders Joanna Strober and Dr. Kathleen Jordan discuss why they started a virtual care platform to empower and educate women in perimenopause and menopause. [15:02] Historically, perimenopause and menopause have been very stigmatizing. So people haven't wanted to admit that they're in perimenopause and menopause as though it was like embarrassing, which is insane. It's just something happening to your body. [15:14] So one of the things that we're trying to do is destigmatize these topics. Perimenopause and menopause are just women's health. So we try to educate women all the time. Maybe it's your hormones and we would like to help you.

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