A Preview Of The Post-Election Legal Drama
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I'm Jimmy Fala. I'm Ainsley Earhart. I'm Bill Hemmer. And this is the Fox News Rundown. Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024. I'm Dave Anthony. Early voting is going on across America.

You know what else has come early? Legal challenges. Setting the stage for more potential post-election drama. The legal claims that have the best chance of succeeding are always going to be the ones that claim that there are structural problems with how election officials in the states intend to carry out the elections. I'm Jessica Rosenthal.

When it comes to policy, what would the beginning of a President Harris term look like? It's a really dynamic duo that really will be ready to hit the ground running. And we know what his first term brought, but what would a second Trump administration bring? I would not be surprised if Donald Trump does bring in outside voices and different experts when it comes to his next administration. And I'm Jason Chaffetz. I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown.

Could the 2024 election end up like four years ago, with fraud claims and lawsuits? Democrats fear that. So does an anti-Trump Republican, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who's endorsed Vice President Harris, sharing the stage with her at three events yesterday in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. You have to choose in this race between someone who has been faithful to the Constitution, who will be faithful, and someone who is not.

And Donald Trump, who it's not just us predicting how he will act. We watched what he did after the last election. We watched what he did on January 6th. She was one of the House Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump then and joined Democrats investigating him in the Capitol riot before Republicans voted Cheney out of office in 2022.

But Trump running mate J.D. Vance says they have concerns, too, telling Fox. Some people on the left who are encouraging violent responses to what we believe is going to be a Donald Trump victory in a couple of weeks, that's not OK. There have already been more than 160 lawsuits filed focused on issues from voter eligibility to vote count to certifying results.

It seems like having an array of lawyers, particularly lined up in what are known to be or assumed to be the battleground states where the election gets decided, is kind of a cost of doing business for a political campaign now. Andy McCarthy is a Fox News contributor, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. Unfortunately,

The litigation aspect of this has become part and parcel of the campaigns. Why is it so important to file before the election? You don't even know the results yet. What are they doing? Well, I think the legal claims that have the best chance of succeeding are always going to be the ones that claim that there are structural problems with how election officials in the states intend to carry out the elections.

If a state official or a state court does something that exceeds their authority to change the statutory law of the state about voting, the federal courts will get involved and actually rule in a way that is sufficiently in advance of the election that everybody can proceed with the election with their eyes open. The problem as you get closer to election day and then the big problem is

in the compressed timeframe between the election, especially when it's a presidential election and the time that the electoral votes have to be certified by the state, that's such a tight timeframe. It's really not as a practical matter, something that lends itself to good litigation. Right. So,

When you do these lawsuits in advance, does that speed the whole process up? It doesn't so much speed the process up as it allows the process to unfold in a time frame that lends itself to the pace of litigation. But the thing is, especially if it's a presidential election, the federal statute that controls

how elections get certified requires the states to certify by a point that's very early in December. The last cycle, it was, I think, December 8th. And then the electoral college is supposed to meet the last cycle. It was December 14th. It's going to be around that period of time. So you're talking about a month.

And if you're raising fraud claims, I have to say, as somebody who, you know, for 20 years was a prosecutor and did a lot of fraud cases, it's very hard to investigate a fraud in a way that you can prove it in court, especially if there's any depth or sophistication to it. To try to do that within a month and be able to prove your case is just it's it's virtually impossible.

impossible unless you have some kind of smoking gun evidence, which of course they didn't have the last time. And it's hard to imagine or count off on the top of your head the occasions that we've had that kind of evidence. It's just highly unusual. So you have a shot as a litigator

If you raise a question about some action that an election official has taken and you do it far enough in advance of the election, you have a chance to get a good hearing in court, to be able to investigate, to be able to say, here's what we're saying legally the state official can't do. But if it's post hoc –

after the election, it's just very difficult on the tight timeframe that you have to prove up an election irregularity. All right, let me ask you something about 2020. There was a lot of controversy about alternate slates of electors. Was that controversy put to bed in 2020, or could we do that again? It wasn't put to bed, but how it will... We haven't even resolved it for 2020 purposes, right? Because

The electors themselves have always made the defense that they were contingent electors. They were not, you know, the...

A popular phrase for people who support the prosecutions and by the prosecutors themselves is that they were fake electors. Like this whole thing was a big fraud, right? And what the electors say is we were not trying to pull the wall over on anyone's eyes. We were not saying Trump was actually certified by the state and we're the actual electors. We were there in case Trump won his court case.

or in case he persuaded the state legislature to nullify the popular election, and if the state legislature were then to supplant Trump for Biden as the winner of the election, then they were there in that contingency in the event that Trump won the election by legal means in the state. The prosecutors and the people who support those prosecutions obviously take a different position. I've always thought, Dave, it's very interesting that

In Jack Smith's case against Trump in Washington, he's indicted Trump for the so-called fake elector scheme. He never brought a case against any of the electors. Now, a couple of states now have brought cases against electors. I think in Michigan and Arizona, they've brought cases. And we don't know how those cases are going to play out. I would think that it should be very difficult to convict them now.

criminally, but obviously the results of those cases are going to bear on the viability of that claim in connection with this election. Okay. The election for president, these federal races, you have to be a citizen legally to vote in them, correct? Correct. It's a violation of federal law for a person who is an alien

to attest that he is an American citizen for purposes of registering to vote, and it is a violation of federal law, federal criminal law, for a person who is not eligible to vote to vote. Okay, now I know you've written about this. In Virginia, there is a battle over illegal alien voting, correct? Correct.

Correct. So what's happening in Virginia is the state, I think very sensibly, is following a state law, which, by the way, was signed into law by Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator, now senator, who was also a vice presidential candidate in, was it 2008? No, Hillary Clinton, her running mate.

Right, exactly right. So he was the Virginia governor who signed this law in, I think it was probably 20, I can't remember what year it was that he signed it into law. But the point is, this was a bipartisan, at least this was the way it was sold, push to...

Make sure that the voting rolls in Virginia were purged of people who did not have eligibility and in particular illegal aliens who were not permitted to vote in federal elections and shouldn't be permitted to vote in state elections. But that's a whole story.

That's a whole different matter. How do they get on the voter rolls anyway? A lot of times I think people don't even understand that they're being added to the voting rolls. They're obviously not lawyers, right? They're people who are trying to establish residency in the United States. So sometimes it's criminal fraud, but other times it's innocent mistake. But because it's a problem, a number of states, including Virginia, Florida too, I believe, have...

have provisions in state law that say periodically the state is supposed to go through the voter rolls and take out people who are known not to be eligible voters including the dead right but you tell you know people who are dead people who I have moved out of the jurisdiction people who are adjudicated as mentally incompetent or have been convicted of a crime and also illegal aliens they're supposed to take them off the rolls

And the reason this is important in terms of civil rights is whenever an ineligible person and particularly an illegal alien who's not even a member of our national community, that's that's a privilege of citizenship. Whenever someone in that status votes in terms of individual voters, it cancels out the vote of an American who's eligible to vote.

And collectively, it dilutes the value of the votes of American citizens and deprives, for example, in this case, Virginians of deciding Virginia elections. All right. Let me ask you a question since we're in this new era of expanded early voting, mail-in voting all over the place. You referenced purging dead voters. What happens if a person votes early in October and they die before Election Day?

My understanding of the law is that that vote should not be counted so that you're allowed to vote early, but your vote doesn't count if you're not living at the time the election takes place. Happily, we've never had an election that was so close that that could have made a difference. That is that there was enough room.

instances. Remember now that voting remotely or voting by mail and doing it in a massive way compared to how we used to do it is a pretty new thing. I think it's a bad thing. It's been more normalized after the COVID election. With all of the lawsuits that have been pre-filed and with the election expected to be as close as we think it could be and after what happened in 2020,

How long do you think this is going to last before we really have a winner? I really think that we'll have a winner by the beginning of December. I mean, obviously, I hope we have a winner the night of the election. I hope that whoever wins, wins by enough of a margin that the legal stuff turns out to be kind of a sideshow.

But it's important to remember that we don't have one national election. We have 50 state elections. The issues and the margins are not going to be the same in every state. And unless you have an irregularity that's so widespread that it could potentially close the gap of what appears to be the election returns, that is, it could make a difference to the outcome.

then that litigation is not going to make a difference. Okay. So all these lawsuits that we've talked about pre-election, they may not really delay who the winner is in the reporting, where it would block a state from, a lot of states from certifying results. Yes, I think that's true. I think for the reasons that we discussed earlier,

But the kind of a thing that would shift the outcome of an election dramatically is a fraud scheme that worked. And I just think it's so difficult to prove that in the tight timeframe that you have.

I don't want to say it's inconceivable, but it would be very, very difficult to pull off a litigation like that. Andy McCarthy, Fox News contributor, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Getting closer. It'll be interesting. Certainly good to have you back with us. Thank you. Thanks so much, Dave.

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I'm Dana Perino. Join me for my podcast Perino on politics as we analyze the 2024 election cycle. Make sure you subscribe to this series on Fox News podcast dot com or wherever you download podcasts and leave me a rating and review. This is Jason Chaffetz with your Fox News commentary coming up.

She's in the White House now, albeit in the number two slot, and he's been president before. So what might we expect from each in the way of policy? When former President Trump is asked how he'll lower costs, he says, drill, baby, drill. He said this at a Univision town hall last Wednesday. There's no other country that has liquid gold like we do. That's oil and gas.

We're going to bring your energy costs down. And with your energy costs, everything is going to come down. He's promised tax reductions on multiple forms of income like tips, overtime and Social Security. But he also posed the possibility of using the National Guard or the military to handle what he called the enemy within. After Fox business host Maria Bartiromo asked if Election Day will be peaceful. I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left activists.

We know one of his big policy goals will be to address the border. He's promised mass deportations, and he said this over the weekend in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Can you believe that? At a recent Atlanta rally, he said he thinks the border is a bigger motivator than even the economy.

So this is purely playing the guessing game on this because one never wants to try and fully predict what Donald Trump is going to do. Erin Perini is a GOP strategist at Axiom Strategies. But if you look at the key tenets and themes of his campaign, I would not be surprised to see executive action on day one. If you remember, the Biden-Harris administration undid 90 some odd executive orders for

from the Trump administration that helped secure the border. Even to snap those back in place could help immediately make a demonstrable difference with the crisis at the southern border. And he can do that and also put forward executive actions and orders on the economy and begin the legislative process, especially in the House and the Senate, to make sure that we're doing the right economic policies. Because no matter who wins,

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, large portions of that are going to expire in 2025. So there's going to have to be massive economic tax legislation in the next year. And so it's a matter of are you going to keep the child tax credit and the tax bill we have under Trump or go with something else under Kamala? I'll ask you more about that in a second. Tell me what you hear or what you think might happen regarding this effort to bring in Elon Musk and

to make government more efficient. I would not be surprised if Donald Trump does bring in outside voices and different experts when it comes to his next administration. And that could include a person like Elon Musk, who has, I mean, an indisputable record of business and economic success in this country. And so to bring in diverse opinions and voices, I think that's probably a good thing. If people are able to build support

successful businesses and we have a bloated bureaucracy in D.C. that makes it difficult to get your passport and do the simple things in the United States, let alone actually govern, then bringing in those outside voices could be a really good strategy to try and make the government more effective for the American people. Interesting. OK. And about the economy, that is right. The

When former President Trump's asked about that, he always focuses on drilling, right? He says it's liquid gold. We're going to drill, baby, drill. But we are currently already producing more oil than ever, including in 2019. Could his plan end up putting him in a bind when it comes to this promise of lowering costs for people?

Not necessarily, because there's a lot of things that can be done when it comes to being able to open up an all of the above energy independent America first energy policy. Part of drill baby drill could also mean that we are replenishing the strategic petroleum reserves and the strategic reserves in the United States.

Those could be things that are economically beneficial in the long run. Yes, if you put a bunch of oil in the market, but you put a bunch of anything in the market, it drives down the cost because the demand doesn't need it. So, yeah, while Mark Cuban might be right about that, to be completely fair, he seems to be confused as a Harris supporter because he said he would campaign against anybody.

who believed in taxing unrealized capital gains. And Kamala Harris was a big supporter of the 2020 of the Joe Biden budget blueprint that included taxing unrealized capital gains.

Hmm. The president, former president has said no taxes on tips, Social Security, overtime. I think he'll he'll need Congress to make tax changes. But do you think all or some of those would be possible even in a divided government since Vice President Harris has said she too would go for no taxes on tips? Is this a bipartisan issue?

Oh, this is absolutely a bipartisan issue when it comes to taxes on tips. And I can imagine the Social Security one would be fairly well received in a bipartisan nature as well. So there will be legislative work being done on the tax code in the United States even

in 2025. That means the individual tax rate. That means the corporate tax rate. That means the child tax credit. That means any homeowner tax credits that might be considered, any number of those things. So it could also include no tax on tips and no tax on Social Security payments, depending on who gets into the White House. Because at this point, that legislation will have to be done. It's clear that Kamala as well wants to pursue tax legislation. It's just a matter of which tax policy wins the White House to get it done. Okay.

OK. And finally, Aaron, I hear a lot. I'm sure you do, too, with all the shows you go on that these fears over what the former president said when he referenced using the National Guard potentially to go after what he called the enemy from within the far left, as he put it. He referenced Congressman Schiff and even former Speaker Pelosi. What happens with that, do you think, if he's president? What do you think he meant by it? What sort of priority is it? And does it really depend, I guess, on a situation that arises?

Yeah, I'm not going to try to predict or game out any situation like that. What I can tell you, though, is that

Donald Trump's rhetoric and conversation and the way he's talking to voters and the American people about the path forward has him gaining ground right now with key demographics to win this election. I think the American people care the most about how expensive it is to live day to day and if they feel safe. And right now, Democrats are losing on both of those fronts going into this

final closing argument portion of the election. Now, when it comes to the focus of a potential Harris administration, the vice president has given us some indication, like in this interview on The View October 8th, when asked what she might have done differently than President Biden. There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of, and I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact. And when asked about some of her past policy positions, she told CNN in her first sit-down interview on August 29th. My values have not changed.

But we know she said she'd focus on tax breaks for first-time homeowners and those who start small businesses and expand the child tax credit. To pay for her plans, she's pushing for higher taxes on certain groups. But she was asked on MSNBC on September 25th, what if those tax increases don't get through Congress? We're going to have to make sure that the biggest corporations and businesses

Billionaires pay their fair share. That's just it. Harris has also said she'd focus on getting a law passed that reinstates Roe. First, she's going to have to govern with a divided government again. Patrick Murphy is a former Pennsylvania congressman and Army undersecretary. If you ask me, 14 days and a week out from Election Day, I look at it like...

The House will probably go back to the Democratic control. The Senate probably going to go in Republican control, right? So in the first hundred days, she gets in there passing confirmation hearings for her cabinet. It's going to be critical. Number two, I think it's important in those first hundred days to show momentum. You know, she has talked and really pledged the fact that it'll be an opportunity economy. So things such as

$25,000 tax break for new home buyers, things like $50,000 tax break for new small businesses for, you know, the tax write-off. And then, you know, really cleaning up some of the mess. I mean, you have a Congress right now that is a divided government, but hasn't passed the farm bill, that hasn't passed the defense bill, what's called the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act. So those are the things that you're going to see right from the jump.

You noted some of these, but yes, she said she wants $25,000 in assistance for first-time homebuyers, a $50,000 tax break for those who start small businesses, an expanded child tax credit, I think $35 insulin for everyone, not just seniors.

All of these, though, Patrick, are things that require Congress, right? Is she going to open up a negotiation or task some higher level Democratic members of Congress with that? I mean, how does this work? She's going to have to work in a bipartisan way. So when you look at it, we all understand we have a divided nation right now.

And, you know, the fastest growing actual political party is independents. So when she gets in there, she's going to have to say, hey, I'm going to put a Republican in the cabinet. You know, maybe that's one of the point people that, you know, can help with this negotiation. But she's going to have to say you have a seat at the table. She's going to have to generally work across the aisle. Luckily, because she's serving the Senate, she's going to be able to work with them.

And Tim Walls, who was my roommate when I was in Congress with him when I just came back from Iraq and ran for Congress. And, you know, he was, you know, he was in Congress. So he has that relate those relationships and a house. So it's a really dynamic duo that will really will be ready to hit the ground running. And so when you say she wants to cut the red tape, when she says, hey, I have a goal of 25 million new small businesses again, you

And, you know, these are things that are bipartisan in nature. These are things that Republicans and Democrats can get behind. Immigration, you know, that broader immigration bill, putting it back up, probably not within the first 100 days. I would love to see it, but probably not going to happen, you know, at that moment. And Patrick plans to pay for all of this immediately.

for all of the plans are what? A 20% corporate tax rate, a higher tax rate on capital gains. That will also...

need this bipartisanship that you're hoping for, right? To get something passed that will change the system to pay for all of this. Right, right. And I think that's where she's more moderate, I think, than frankly Joe Biden in a respectful way, right? Where she's saying, hey, listen, I get the corporate tax rate was at 35%. I'm not trying to go back to what it was.

but we need to make corporations pay their fair share. So let's not have it at 35%. Let's put it at 28%. Trump obviously wants to make it even lower at 15%. That's not sustainable, Jessica, and you know it and I know it, right? When you say our nation, under Trump added $8 trillion that we're at over $34 trillion in debt, that, Jessica, what people forget, it's like a bad credit card. I mean, the American taxpayer has to pay interest on that national debt. We're about...

$800 billion a year just in the interest rate. That is more than any other federal agencies except the Department of Defense. So we really need that. When we look at the bipartisan commission that she talked about, about making government more efficient, those leaders have to understand we have to work in a Democrat and Republican way as Americans to say –

Our national debt is a national security issue. - One last for you. It's so tight, obviously, as we know, if we believe the polls. What does she do over the next two weeks? Is it like sort of keep on keeping on with the rallies or should she do something else? Should she change her answer to the question, what would you have done differently than President Biden? - You know, we have a saying in the army, Jessica,

loyalty above all else except honor, right? So she's loyal to Joe Biden. She was his vice president. But she has made it very, very clear that while she's been loyal to him, she has her own path and it's not going to be an extended term, extended administration. She has her own vision and her own upbringing. And so I would say to you, I look at it as when she answers these questions here in the final two weeks,

you know, being more clear and decisive on her vision, how we're turning the page from a, from frankly, Donald Trump and moving forward. And I think,

People will rally around that. You know, you want new dynamic leadership that's bipartisan, that will put the country first over these partisan politics in the old, frankly, debates of the past. Former congressman and former undersecretary of the Army, Patrick Murphy, thank you so much for joining. Thanks, Jessica. Appreciate you. Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down.

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It's time for your Fox News commentary. Jason Chaffetz. What's on your mind? With less than two weeks to go in the election, yes, we're down to less than two weeks. Every single day matters. Every single day you've got to be able to watch because millions of people are now starting to vote. They're focused. And with literally just days to go before the final votes are cast, who's going to win each day? Winning the media cycle is everything.

Donald Trump is a master at this. He is spontaneous. He is engaging. And you saw just a couple of days ago, he's at McDonald's. J.D. Vance is serving beers. You have Donald Trump again going to an NFL game. Where was Kamala Harris? Didn't really get any attention because she is not good at doing the spontaneous. She's not good at ad-libbing.

So Donald Trump is really one of the best we've ever seen as a retail politician. He is a street fighter who is out there ad-libbing in barbershops and visiting places and doing so without a teleprompter and doing it in a spontaneous way. As one that has run through five general elections himself by being on the ballot—I used to be in Congress—

winning each day is critical. So as we go into these final days, watch what candidate is doing what and ask yourself, who's going to attract the most attention? Who's going to get the eyeballs? Who's going to show up on the social media? Who's going to show up on the traditional media? Who's going to show up on your television screen? Those are going to be the critical elements for the waning days of this campaign. One of the most interesting campaigns in the history of campaigns, but everything's on the line.

I'm Jason Chaffetz, host of the Jason in the House podcast and a Fox News contributor.

Pull up a chair and join me, Rachel Campos Duffy, and me, former U.S. Congressman Sean Duffy, as we share our perspective on the discussions happening at kitchen tables across America. Download From the Kitchen Table, The Duffys, at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you download podcasts.