Fast forward to April, 2024.
Lara Trump is now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, after Donald Trump's efforts to install her and his hand-picked RNC chairman, Michael Whatley. Whatley is a North Carolina Republican who served on George W. Bush's Florida recount team for the 2000 presidential election that was decided at the U.S. Supreme Court. Years later Whatley declared, “it was really the first time that Republicans got down into the trenches and fought,” and claimed, “if we were not there, they were going to steal it.”
Now both Michael Whatley and Lara Trump are leading the RNC, and with Donald Trump as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, they are continuing the ex-president's focus on "election integrity."
Tuesday night Lara Trump served up some insight into what they're planning.
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"We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots. We want people all across this country –" she said before host Eric Bolling interrupted her.
"I want to hear this, this is really fascinating to me," Bolling said. "You have 100,000 people who are, I think I saw paid at one point, but whatever – irrelevant, but, so they will be stationed inside polling places? I didn't even know you can do that. Tell us about it."
Trump replied, "there was a moratorium for about 40 years on the RNC actually training people to work in these polling locations in the tabulation centers where the mail-in ballots come in. And last year, the judge who implemented that passed away, so that was lifted, and that gives us a great ability as we head into what I assume everyone understands is the most important election of our lifetime."
Bolling went on to ask, "Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?"
"Yup," Trump replied. "And that means Eric that they should know and they can count how many ballots come in, and how many ballots should go out of every single polling location."
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She went on to say if anyone cheats, "we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law."
"It is not worth it to cheat in a federal election, that is a crime my friends you do not want to commit."
Bolling was referring to the more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers the RNC reportedly has lined up to monitor vote counting. In a joint statement the Trump campaign and the RNC called it, “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history.”
Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele blasted Lara Trump.
"Lara, you know why there was 'a moratorium on the RNC for 40 years'? Because the RNC was caught cheating. The RNC was placed under a 1982 Consent decree for voter caging. Voter caging hinders an eligible voter’s ability to vote. The process involves efforts to identify and disenfranchise improperly registered voters solely on the basis of undeliverable mail. It often leads to the unwarranted purging of election rolls of otherwise eligible voters."
"So," Steele continued, "given the continued lies about the 2020 election and your daddy-in-law claiming if he loses in 2024 it's because the election is rigged, you're planning to have your people 'physically handle the ballots'--and we're supposed to think that's a good idea?"
NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and the protection of democracy, also served up strong criticism.
"What does this mean, they will have thugs to physically take the ballots to make sure they are marked for Republican candidates?" Ben-Ghiat asked. "Sounds like a perfect authoritarian election plan to me."
Watch the video above or at this link.
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