Lara Trump's Dangerous Lie

In February 2024, continuing her long history of election denialism, Lara Trump said she did not believe President Biden received 81 million votes in the 2020 election. In March, the former television producer for Inside Edition became the co-chair of the Republican National Committee (“RNC”), her father-in-law’s handpicked candidate for the job. A habitual election denier is now running the Republican Party, or as it should be more correctly known, the party of Trump.

The corruption of the Republican Party is virtually complete and it is more assumed than reported on as “a thing.” The transformation has happened before our eyes in the past eight years or so. This isn’t a matter of substantive policy, although, of course, it’s impossible to ignore the policy shifts: anti-law enforcement, pro-Russia, and so on. This is about the un-democratization of the Republican Party and its conversion into a political tool whose job is to fuel the cult of personality.

Lara Trump confirmed that it’s about Trump, not about electing a slate of Republicans. Just before she went to the RNC, she said that if she got the job, “every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the RNC—that is electing Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.” So much for all the Senators, House members, and other down-ballot Republican candidates. With Lara Trump in charge, they’re on their own.

The RNC is now focused on promoting the repeatedly debunked Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Lara Trump’s father-in-law. In fact, swearing fealty to the Big Lie now appears to be a condition of employment for RNC staffers. And, last week, the RNC sent a robocall to its supporters on Lara Trump’s behalf, which included the claim that the Democrats committed “massive fraud” in the 2020 election. That’s a lie. Every reputable journalist should report it as such.

“We all know the problems. No photo IDs, unsecured ballot drop boxes, mass mailing of ballots, and voter rolls chock full of deceased people and non-citizens are just a few examples of the massive fraud that took place,” people who received the call were told. “If Democrats have their way, your vote could be canceled out by someone who isn’t even an American citizen.” A request for an “election security” donation followed.

Of course, the truth is that there is no evidence of fraudulent voting. Many states have adopted stringent measures that require ID, reject the use of drop boxes and mail-in ballots, and carefully scrutinize voter rolls. These measures are so severe that they lead to voter suppression, not voter fraud, as I wrote for Cafe.com earlier this week. Donald Trump filed and lost more than 60 challenges to various elections in court and lost all of them (except a procedural one that did not involve a finding of fraud). He has never adduced any evidence of the sort of rampant, outcome-influencing fraud he claimed and that his daughter-in-law is now promoting.

As someone who teaches and studies in the field of democratic institutions and guardrails in my day job as a law professor, I find these developments to be extremely disturbing, and even more so, the absence of any sustained public discussion about them. When one of two political parties in a democracy dies, the democracy itself is imperiled. While we all know this in some sense, it’s important to focus on the specifics.

There is reporting that on Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson will go to Mar-a-Lago for “remarks on election integrity” with Donald Trump. I prefer Mr. Smith goes to Washington to Mr. Johnson goes to Florida to kiss the ring in an effort to save his job. Johnson, who is under pressure from, of all people, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has said she’ll force a vote to oust him if he has the audacity to bring a measure that will provide military support for Ukraine to the floor, is apparently hoping Trump will save his job.

In case you needed further proof of the demise of the Republican Party, this news is out: Putin will not stop if he prevails in Ukraine. Anyone who is paying attention understands that if Ukraine cannot hold the line, there will be more aggression, and at some point the threat to our country may be one that doesn’t permit us to stay at home while it is fought by proxy with our weapons, but not our citizens on the ground. The Republican Party used to staunchly stand for these principles. No more.

The media has an enormous obligation to report accurately. Call out the lies and the danger to democracy. Trump has also threatened to attack the media and undercut the First Amendment if he wins again. Not only is accurate reporting the right thing to do, it may well be the fight for the future of the free press in this country.

All of this is happening as the start of Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan on Monday looms in front of us. Trump and his supporters have tried to dismiss it as insignificant. They’ve said it’s about bookkeeping errors. While we regrettably won’t have audio or video from inside the courtroom, there will be a cadre of capable journalists and lawyers live blogging from inside the courtroom. The truth will out.

Even before we begin to learn about the evidence in that case, new polling from Reuters/Ipsos shows that 64% of voters in a poll taken across five days believe the charges against Trump in Manhattan are serious. That includes approximately four in ten Republicans who were polled and two-thirds of independents. That’s before the trial itself starts and more attention is focused on the allegations and evidence in the case.

The reporting will be pervasive and hard to avoid once it starts. But we know how unlikely it is that folks who watch right-wing media exclusively will get exposure to what actually goes on in the courtroom. So make sure you’re paying attention—we will stay on top of developments here at Civil Discourse—and make sure the people around you understand what is actually going on and precisely how serious these charges of election interference are. How serious? So serious that Trump paid off Stormy Daniels to keep people from learning about them before the 2016 election. Remind people they don’t have to take your word for it; it’s Trump’s behavior that tells us just how serious the charges are.

Lara Trump tells us that election fraud is dangerous and bad. It’s clear who the real danger is.

We’re in this together,

Joyce