7 things you should read before Wednesday night’s final presidential debate
With the presidential election less than three weeks away, the final debate between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump will take place Wednesday, October 19 at 9 p.m. Moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, the candidates are expected to be asked about immigration, the economy, the Supreme Court, and their “fitness to be president,” among other topics selected by Wallace.In addition to hearing the candidates’ takes on the issues, debate viewers are sure to hear about the latest raft of scandals and storylines that have cropped up since the second debate earlier this month. In fact, it’s been hard to keep up. Luckily, plenty of important, substantive pieces of journalism about both candidates have been published and can help viewers stay informed.Here are seven things to read before Wednesday night’s debate.
The Fix Isn’t In
Warnings of conspiracy stoke anger among Trump faithful — The Boston GlobeDonald Trump, reeling from a series of scandals and down in most official polls, has employed a strategy never before used by a major party presidential candidate: claiming the election process is rigged, and telling supporters to monitor election sites to prevent voter fraud. The Globe’s Matt Viser and Tracy Jan spoke to Trump fans at a rally in Cincinnati, and their words are nothing short of disturbing.“If [Hillary Clinton is] in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,” one voter told the Globe. “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed.”Said another, speaking about monitoring a local polling place: “I’ll look for . . . well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American. I’m going to go right up behind them. […] I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
The success of the voter fraud myth — The New York Times
While Trump’s claims that the election is rigged are unprecedented, his view isn’t unpopular. Almost half of Americans believe voter fraud occurs “somewhat” or “very” often. The truth is, numerous studies have found election fraud to be almost nonexistent in the U.S. According to this Times piece, the most comprehensive examination of voter fraud to date found that out of one billion votes cast in all American elections between 2000 and 2014, there were only 31 possible cases of impersonation fraud. So why do so many people believe voter fraud is a problem?
Drudge, Limbaugh fall for Twitter joke about postal worker destroying Trump ballots — The Daily Beast
To answer the above question, one reason is that certain media outlets are quick to jump on stories that suggest evidence of voter fraud, even when said evidence is very thin.
That’s what happened when a Twitter user jokingly claimed to be a postal worker living in Ohio who shredded any Donald Trump absentee ballots he could find. (The user lives in California and is not a postal worker.) Nevertheless, the story was picked up by Gateway Pundit, the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, and many other conservative news outlets, and both the USPS and Ohio’s secretary of state investigated after they were flooded with angry messages from Trump supporters.
Speaking out
Physically attacked by Donald Trump — People“We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.” Those are the words of former People writer Natasha Stoynoff, who told her story to her former employer after the tape of Trump bragging to Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush about the same type of behavior surfaced. Trump denied Stoynoff’s allegations and insulted her looks in the process, butPeople published a followup story Tuesday featuring six sources who corroborated Stoynoff’s story.
When it Leaks, It Pours
Hillary Clinton’s email problems just came roaring back — The Washington PostDespite the FBI closing the door on Hillary Clinton’s private email server months ago, the former secretary of state’s email scandal won’t go away. The most recent hiccup stems from emails released by the FBI, in which a retired agent claims Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy attempted to persuade the FBI to change the status of some of Clinton’s classified emails to unclassified in exchange for allowing FBI agents to enter countries to which they were not allowed to go. The State Department denies the allegation, and nothing in the email indicates Clinton was aware of the alleged quid-pro-quo, but the denials may mean little to those who view Trump’s “Crooked Hillary” nickname as accurate.
How did town hall question get to Clinton campaign? — CNN
In one of the alleged hacked Democratic National Committee emails released by Wikileaks, DNC official Donna Brazile appeared to tell Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri that she occasionally received town hall questions ahead of time, and sent over a question about the death penalty that was extremely similar to a question TV One host Roland Martin asked during the March 13 town hall featuring Clinton and Bernie Sanders. While everyone involved has denied leaking the questions, the revelation likely reinforced the suspicions of people who believed a (fake) story that Clinton received questions in advance before facing off against Trump.
Trump told Russia to blame for hacks long before debate — NBC News
On October 7, the U.S. intelligence community (including the NSA and CIA) issued a joint statement blaming the Russian government for the DNC hack. “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations,” the statement said. “We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.” In August, NBC News reported that both Clinton and Trump were briefed by intelligence officials about the hacks, and Russia’s almost-certain involvement. “To profess not to know at this point is willful misrepresentation,” a senior intelligence official told NBC.
And yet, during the debate, Donald Trump questioned whether a hack had even happened, and claimed that blaming Russia was an underhanded tactic to make him look bad. “I notice, anytime anything wrong happens, they like to say the Russians are — [Hillary Clinton] doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking. Maybe there is no hacking,” Trump told moderator Martha Raddatz. “But they always blame Russia. And the reason they blame Russia is because they think they’re trying to tarnish me with Russia. I know nothing about Russia.”
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