On today’s BradCast, a self-identified “establishment Republican” pushes back against Donald Trump’s claims that the election will be “rigged”, but goes on to deny that his own party has promoted the very “voter fraud” conspiracies that the Republican nominee is now exploiting. [Audio link to complete show is posted below.]
Trump has been increasingly strident of late in his rhetoric charging that the election is being “rigged” by “large scale voter fraud” and more. As he does so, his supporters are using more and more violent rhetoric to describe “bloodshed” and even assassination should their candidate fail to win on November 8th. As a disturbing Boston Globe report noted over the weekend, it has now fallen to establishment GOPers to try and calm the increasingly dangerous waters.
Former New Hampshire GOP chairman Fergus Cullen, a self-described ‘Never Trumper’ who characterizes the increasingly violent rhetoric from Trump supporters as ‘very scary’, joins us today to rebut Trump’s charges about fraud and decry threats of violence by his followers. “He’s doing terrible damage to the Republican brand,” Cullen says. “Even after he’s defeated, he’s going to be causing trouble for our party for quite awhile, probably, in terms of how it’s identified in the eyes of millions of Americans.”
“On election night when Donald Trump is defeated, he’s going to have a really important choice. Does he say responsible things that are aimed at accepting the outcome and telling his supporters that they should accept the outcome as well. Or, does he in fact pour gasoline on a fire, and continue the rhetoric that he’s been using in the last ten days?”
But later, in the course of our conversation, it took a very bizarre turn. Cullen went on to reject the very premise of the idea that the Republican Party bears some responsibility for the effectiveness of Trump’s claims, given the party has loudly forwarded false claims of massive Democratic ‘voter fraud’, for political gain, for more than a decade. He doesn’t think that has happened.
“I don’t think there’s any argument that, certainly, some Republicans do believe that voter fraud takes place on significant scale enough to affect elections. I don’t think the party has been pushing that line,” Cullen tells me. As you’ll hear, and as you might expect, that notion took me by complete surprise during the conversation. He compares “various conspiracy theories out there” with those from “the black helicopter crowd” and UFO spotters, but says “please don’t blame the party for institutionalizing this nonsense.”
I remain as gobsmacked here as anyone who has ever spent more than 15 minutes reading The BRAD BLOG or has even watched Fox “News” for about the same amount of time. While I expected to disagree on a few points (including computer tabulators vs. hand-counts in NH, which we discussed as well) and while Cullen was very nice and very generous with his time in joining us today, I’m still stunned that he is actually denying the very existence of the years-long, very well-funded effort by the very top echelon of the national GOP meant to deceive the public about “voter fraud”. (See this Special Coverage page and this one for just a tiny taste of their efforts and our decade plus coverage of it. Listen to the conversation and its follow-up segment on today’s show for much more.)
Also today: A bit of good news for voters, as a federal court has once again smacked down the state of Florida, this time for a GOP-enacted scheme that would have unnecessarily rejected thousands of absentee ballots; Ohio’s Republican Sec. of State continues to fight a federal court order to restore more than a million illegally purged voters to the rolls; And we cover a fresh spate of violent and political terror attacks and plots by Trump-supporting Rightwing extremists against Muslims and others.
And, finally, a few thoughts on the curious case of the weekend firebombing of a Republican Party campaign office in NC…
CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_FergusCullen_TrumpRigVoterFraud_FLAbsentee_NCGOPBombing_101716.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Still waiting for Brad to tell the world the story of the Democrat on Democrat voter fraud that just took place here in St. Louis by means of vote-by-mail ballots. Brad’s claims that such fraud is rare would be more credible if he actually gave attention to the documented cases where it has in fact occurred.
Mike Ridgway
St. Louis, MO
Twitter: @miketangoromeo
This blog is tainted. 100% TAINTED, you point at windmills while TREASON IS IN YOUR FACES!
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5809hx/i_found_proof_that_the_hillary_campaign_had_the/?st=iuew20o4&sh=99408c51
#2 De La Vota says:
This blog is tainted. 100% TAINTED, you point at windmills while TREASON IS IN YOUR FACES!
God, hyperbole? Much?
James O’Keefe has been exposed as a fraud on numerous occasions. If this long-awaited video finally serves as some semblance of vindication for O’keefe’s chronic dishonesty, then…
But it really doesn’t matter, does it? As long as you and your hopelessly confused conspiracy cohort are incited to thrash and foam, then O’keefe’s done his job.
#1 Mike Ridgway says:
Still waiting for Brad to tell the world the story of the Democrat on Democrat voter fraud that just took place here in St. Louis by means of vote-by-mail ballots.
Be so kind as to provide a link or two. You say you have a documented case. No offense, but I’d like to see for myself.
Well, I just wanted to congratulate Brad on such and great show, and a disturbingly informative interview with Fergus Cullen and how you pressed him on him being part of this “voter fraud” bullshit the Republicans have been using as a phony reason to suppress peoples’ right to vote. I couldn’t have been more pissed off listening to that “person.”
Right then, he reminded me of one of the countless numbers of prosecutors who refuse to acknowledge the part they played, regardless of evidence to the contrary, in imprisoning innocent people–sometimes for decades.
Many people who have voted for decades with no trouble at all are suddenly being disenfranchised by Republicans who know they need an “edge” simply because their policies are so unpalatable to normal human beings. And that REALLY pisses me off.
I can never get enough of people saying “conspiracy theorist”, when the dangers of the voting machines are brought up.
It’s like saying your neighborhood can’t be on fire, because you don’t have windows.
Thank you, Jim. Much appreciated.
Pointing out the time stamps on Jim’s poorly thought out response. Yeah Jim we’ve all been there, I seen your mouth is wide open and angrily flapping there. I would like to point out that while it was flapping out on the freshly painted front porch this Fowler fellow has accidentally stepped onto a DNC meat grinder. (sarc)
Maybe you ought to go offer some legal assistance to Fowler instead of flapping your lips on the porch?
I get it none of this is really happening. Keep telling yourself this.
(says the sarcastic ol fart in response to the friendly warm welcome.)
corrections
———–
Scott Foval stepped on the DNC meat grinder
Robert Creamer stepped on the DNC meat grinder
“next”
Yes, De La Vota, none of this is happening as I angrily pound my keyboard.
But seriously, Creamer (whose apparent act of treason was hiring Scott Foval) took himself out of the campaign because he didn’t want to be a distraction, and Foval’s ties have been cut while his heavily edited words were repudiated by the Hillary campaign, even if they may never have been put into action.
While unbelievably stupid–because you’d think activists would focus on promoting their candidate rather than interfering with the efforts of the competition–these political dirty deeds done dirt cheap are sadly quite common. That being said, James O’keefe’s latest Allen Funt-on-acid exposé just doesn’t rise to the level of, say, uncovering a war based on false pretences.