Trump and allies spread false noncitizen voting claims and World Series preview: Morning Rundown

Donald Trump and his allies are spreading a new “big lie” ahead of Election Day. A World Series matchup for the ages is set to begin. And a new report warns that online gambling poses a public health threat. 

Here’s what to know today.

How Trump is using a new ‘big lie’ to undermine the 2024 election results

In tiny boxes, hundreds of people, most of them white, meet weekly in online video conferences to share specious evidence of a problem that doesn’t exist: a leftist plot to “get the illegals to become voters,” as Jeff Vega, a conservative Latino activist in Michigan, put it in an August meeting. 

The participants have reportedly included a Wisconsin state lawmaker, a former Trump administration official and a U.S. congressman. They bat around ideas for how to combat this supposed threat and urge one another to go as far as they can within the bounds of the law. Reporters are prohibited from attending the meetings, which are run by the Election Integrity Network, but recordings have been leaked to media outlets, including NBC News. 

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In contrast to 2020, when Trump and his backers tossed out an array of false election interference allegations — many struck down by courts — Republicans in this election cycle are almost entirely focused on the specter of noncitizen voting, a claim all the more appealing because of the difficulty of proving something isn’t happening.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal. It is also incredibly rare. 

But the false belief that this is happening at rates that may tip the election toward Democrats who are out to steal it (again) marries two of the biggest themes in Republican messaging: that America’s borders and elections are insecure. 

Senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny dove into the “big lie” 2.0, its spread and the real-world effects it’s already had.

Read the full story here.

More election coverage: 

➡️ Some of the lawyers involved in the efforts to overturn Trump’s election loss are still involved in election-related litigation across the country.

➡️ Trump said the U.S. is “like a garbage can for the rest of the world” during an immigration-focused rally in Arizona. When answering questions from reporters in Nevada, he denied ever having said positive things about Hitler during his time in office. And during a radio interview, he said he would immediately fire special counsel Jack Smith if he’s elected.

➡️ Seven of Trump’s town halls since August have been moderated by women. It’s no coincidence.

➡️ A new NBC News poll of Gen Z voters shows a significant gender divide when it comes to who supports Harris versus who supports Trump. 

➡️ Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a star-studded rally near Atlanta with remarks from former President Barack Obama and a performance by Bruce Springsteen. Today, Harris hosts an event in Houston, during which Beyoncé is expected to perform.

➡️ Harris’ team is quietly considering potential nominees for attorney general if she wins in November. These are the three main candidates under consideration.

➡️ Outside spending from super PACs and other groups not directly affiliated with Trump or Harris’ campaigns has surpassed $1 billion, exceeding a record set in 2020.

➡️ Tim Sheehy, a Republican Senate candidate in Montana, said he was medically discharged from the Navy, but records indicate otherwise.

➡️ Can Democrats win control of the House even if Trump is elected president? It’ll come down to a few critical races.

➡️ If Republicans lose the majority in the House, some in the party think Speaker Mike Johnson will lose his leadership role. 

A once-in-a-lifetime World Series

The 2024 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees starts tonight — and it’s safe to say it’s a matchup for the ages. The teams haven’t met in the World Series since 1981, and there are a host of other benchmarks that make this series extra exciting. And don’t forget about the star power of each team’s roster. Sports reporter Rohan Nadkarni explains the significance of this year’s Fall Classic and what to watch for:

⚾ What makes the 2024 World Series so exciting? It’s a matchup of the best team from the American League (Yankees) and the best team from the National League (Dodgers). In other words, these teams led their respective leagues in wins during the regular season — only the third time that has happened this millennium and only the second time after a non-shortened season. It’s also the 12th all-time meeting between the Yankees and Dodgers in the Fall Classic — the most of any two teams, and their first since 1981.

⭐ Is this series anything more than a matchup between baseball’s two biggest sluggers — Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge? Yes, it’s much more. Both teams are filled with stars, including Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman for the Dodgers and Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton for the Yankees. And both franchises paid a premium for their rosters. New York and Los Angeles ranked second and third, respectively, in payroll for this season.

⚖️ Which team do you think has the edge? The Dodgers, to me, have been a more complete team in the postseason. The Yankees have better starting pitchers, but the Dodgers have persevered through injuries — and their offense has been more consistent.

👀 Are there any other storylines you’ll be watching during the series? I’ll be keeping an eye on whether the Yankees can return to form at the plate, as their postseason batting average and slugging has been lower than during the regular season. Entering Game 1, the team is hitting only .237 — and Judge is below .200 at .161. I’ll also be looking at how often Dodgers manager Dave Roberts will have to rely on his bullpen for all nine innings. L.A. has had three bullpen-only games this postseason, with a 2-1 record on those nights.

🎶 Ohtani takes the plate to Lupe Fiasco’s “The Show Goes On,” Judge to F.L.Y.’s “Swag Surfin’.” What would be your walk-up song? “Nevada” by YoungBoy Never Broke Again

Read more about the 2024 World Series. And here’s how to watch the games.

DA wants Menendez brothers resentenced

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is expected to file paperwork today that recommends that the Menendez brothers be resentenced in their parents’ murders — a move that paves the way for their potential release from prison. Gascón will recommend that the possibility of life without parole be removed from Lyle and Erik Menendez’s case and that they be resentenced for murder. A Superior Court judge will make the ultimate decision. 

Lyle and Erik Menendez fatally shot their parents in their Beverly Hills home in 1989, when they were 21 and 18 years old. Last week, about 20 Menendez family members gathered outside a Los Angeles courthouse to rally in support for the brothers’ release from prison.

Rise of online gambling fuels public health threat, report warns 

The days of gambling being just “people playing a game with cards around the table” are gone — and with the proliferation of online betting, gambling has become a public health threat, a new report warns. To compile the report, the medical journal The Lancet convened a commission on gambling consisting of 22 members from a dozen countries who reviewed existing studies and surveys on gambling’s prevalence, impacts and harms. The commission determined that current regulations do not go far enough to protect the public.

Beyond financial losses, gambling can lead people to lose their jobs, relationships or health and raise the risk of suicidality and domestic violence, the report said. Even those who do not have gambling disorders suffer their harms.

The report coincidentally comes on the eve of the World Series, one of the biggest sporting events in the U.S. Since 2018, 38 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized sports betting, with apps like DraftKings and FanDuel allowing users to wager on outcomes, teams, players and more. Read more about the report.

Read All About It 

• President Joe Biden is scheduled to issue a formal apology today for a government-run boarding school system that forcibly separated generations of Native American children from their families.
• A 15-year-old boy was charged with murder in the deaths of his parents and three siblings and attempted murder of another sibling.
• The CDC lowered the age for routine pneumonia vaccines from 65 to 50. 
• A Canadian Sikh community is rallying around a family after a mother found her 19-year-old daughter, who was a Walmart employee, dead in a walk-in oven.
• The Texas attorney general blasted state lawmakers for halting the execution of death row inmate Robert Roberson, who would’ve been the first U.S. execution in a “shaken baby” case. 
• The operator of the ship that caused the Baltimore bridge collapse agreed to pay over $100 million in a settlement reached with the Justice Department.

Staff Pick: Gay Republicans rally for Trump

For weeks, I was scratching my head to find a story about an elusive demographic: LGBTQ Republicans. So when a group of gay Trump supporters announced they were gathering in swing states to woo LGBTQ voters I quickly flew to Charlotte, North Carolina, to check things out.

At the so-called “Trump UNITY” tour, there were no rainbows, straight people vastly outnumbered the gay men in attendance and LGBTQ-specific policy issues were hardly discussed. Among the few LGBTQ voters there, none of that seemed to matter. One attendee told me that it’s time for LGBTQ people to “get away from that victim mentality.”

The story provides an inside look at this fascinating and somewhat overlooked voting bloc as Election Day nears. — Matt Lavietes, reporter

NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified 

There are several reasons your bathtub drain can get clogged. Here’s the best way to clean it and which products to use. And while you’re on a cleaning kick, here’s a guide for cleaning the garbage disposal in your kitchen sink so it stays clear of rotting food and foul smells.

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