Trump’s election claims add to a cloud of mistrust
The US president used a primetime address last night to argue America’s election system is broken and vulnerable to “rigging.” He pointed to documents he says show Chinese interference in the 2020 vote. But the evidence Trump offered, along with past assessments from the intelligence community, doesn’t support his broadest claims. While the material did highlight the well-documented interests of foreign governments in US elections, it stopped short of evidence of Chinese vote-tampering. Even so, the allegations, combined with claims of a “deep state” cover-up and references to Russia and even Venezuela, create a confusing picture that’s difficult for anyone to untangle. At a time when trust in US elections is at its lowest point in years, the president’s claims add to a cloud of uncertainty headed into the midterms and the 2028 presidential race. Whether they change minds may be less important than the fact that they undermine trust in the institutions that determine who wins and loses.
Le Pen shrugs at Musk’s endorsement
Elon Musk endorsed Marine Le Pen, French far-right party National Rally (RN) leader, on Wednesday, deeming her “France’s last hope,” but the RN is keeping both the comments and Musk at arm’s length. A spokesperson for the party said on Thursday that though he agrees with the statement, they’re uninterested in overseas endorsements. Meanwhile, other European far-right factions have welcomed Musk’s support, including Germany’s AfD and, at times, Britain’s Reform UK, which embraced Musk’s endorsement to amplify their reach. Yet for Le Pen, Musk’s support may not carry the same weight. The RN is already popular, and Le Pen is leading in the polls. In fact, Musk’s boost could have an undesired effect: some European politicians raised concerns that Musk’s personal politics play a role in X’s algorithms to boost right-wing candidates, and a spokesperson for the RN expressed fears that the endorsement would cause party critics to “wave the bogeyman of alleged algorithm manipulation.”
Nicaragua cuts ties with Italy over extradition row
In 1978, an Italian left-wing terrorist group kidnapped and later murdered center-right politician Aldo Moro, a former prime minister. The operation, which rocked the politics of Italy and Europe more broadly, was meant to scuttle plans for a grand bargain between Italy’s Communist Party and Moro’s Christian Democrats. One of the terror group’s members, Alessio Casimirri, fled afterward to Nicaragua, where he joined the left-wing Sandinista rebels who later took power. Casimirri, convicted by Italian courts of involvement in the Moro plot, settled down in the capital, Managua, married a local woman, and even opened a well-reviewed Italian restaurant. Rome, meanwhile, has long sought his extradition, despite the lack of a bilateral treaty with Nicaragua. Following fresh criticism from the Italian foreign ministry this week, Nicaragua announced it was cutting ties with Italy entirely.
