Here are 13 times right-wingers totally whiffed election predictions

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Conservatives—both media pundits and Republican officeholders—love to make election predictions. Curiously, most of those predictions tend to see an upside for Republicans. But many of the right’s most infamous predictions go wrong, spectacularly so. 

Here are 13 of the right’s worst predictions, plus one so wrong it had to be noted.

13. Karl Rove’s math

In the days ahead of the 2006 midterms, many of the early signs indicated that the Democrats would secure a majority in the House, largely based on opposition to the Iraq War. But Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s political guru, was unmoved.

Appearing on NPR, Rove insisted, “I'm looking at all these, [NPR host] Robert [Siegel], and adding them up, and I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math, I'm entitled to the math.”

Democrats took the House, and Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to be elected speaker of the House. Democrats also took the Senate, and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid became the majority leader.

Famously, Bush later referred to the result of the election as a “thumping” for him and the rest of the GOP.

12. Dick Morris’ Romney landslide

In 2012, conservative pundit Dick Morris confidently predicted that then-President Barack Obama would lose in a “landslide” to Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Obama was ahead in most national polls at the time, but Morris argued in an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” that there was “zilch, zone, zip nada” chance that Obama would be reelected.

Obama won reelection in November 2012, winning 51% of the popular vote and 26 states plus Washington, D.C., securing 332 of the 270 electoral votes he needed to win.

11. Hugh Hewitt’s Romney win

Conservative columnist and radio host Hugh Hewitt, who recently rage-quit The Washington Post after a confrontation with the paper’s liberal columnists, was also on the Romney train. Hewitt even wrote a book early in the 2012 cycle entitled, “A Mormon In The White House?” speculating on a potential Romney victory. (If Romney had won, he would have been the first Mormon president.)

In National Review, Hewitt predicted that Romney would win Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Obama won all six states.

10. Kathleen Parker: America will be “fine” under Trump

In 2016, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker said the United States would be “fine” if either Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Four years later, nearly a quarter of a million people were dead due to COVID-19 while unemployment was over 6%, and Supreme Court justices who would later overturn Roe v. Wade were installed on the Supreme Court.

9. Arizona Gov. Kari Lake?

Kari Lake, running for governor in Arizona in 2022, told reporters she would not only win that year’s election but also be the media’s “worst frickin’ nightmare for eight years.” Lake lost her election—even though she has denied she lost for years—and is currently trailing Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego in this year’s Senate election.

8. Erick Erickson and Sen. Herschel Walker

Conservative pundit and radio host Erick Erickson confidently predicted in 2022 that Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker would soundly defeat Sen. Raphael Warnock, and by enough of a margin that a runoff election would be unnecessary.

Instead the Walker-Warnock race resulted in Warnock coming out ahead of Walker in November, triggering a runoff race the next month. In that one-on-one contest, Warnock won reelection with 51.4% of the vote.

7-3. The 2022 red wave that wasn’t

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the right convinced itself that a “red wave” would wipe out Democrats in the House. Instead, what occurred was more akin to a red trickle. While Republicans took a majority in the House, they flipped just 10 seats on net—far from the enormous victory the right expected. And since then, that majority has eroded, and Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker after an internal revolt. Republicans now hold a single-digit majority and are barely holding on.

Some notable punditry about the faux red wave:

  • Former Vice President Mike Pence: “The Red Wave is coming!”

  • McCarthy saw a red wave and large majorities on the way, and said so over and over.

  • Dick Morris (again!) said there would be a massive shift in power in favor of the GOP (and predicted a Senate boost that also failed to manifest).

  • For Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a wave was not enough: While campaigning with Republican candidates, Cruz insisted a “red tsunami” would soon show up.

  • Tucker Carlson, then a host at Fox News, took a break from racist rants and promised his viewers that Democrats were about to get “crushed.”

2. Condi vs. Hillary, according to Dick Morris

Dick Morris (yet again!) went all out ahead of the 2008 election, writing a book in 2005 that predicted both party’s nominees as “Hillary (Clinton) vs. Condi (Condoleezza Rice).

While Clinton did run in that cycle’s Democratic presidential primary, she lost to Obama. And in the 19 years since Morris’ prediction, Rice has never run for political office.

Special mention: Mark Halperin’s good news for John McCain

Journalist Mark Halperin is not openly conservative (though he has worked for right-wing network Newsmax), but before he left NBC News in a storm of sexual harassment allegations, he left a mark on the prediction game.

Throughout the 2008 campaign cycle, Halperin reliably found “good news” for Republican Sen. John McCain. The height of this came as Obama criticized McCain for not remembering how many homes he owned (as thousands of Americans were losing their homes in the foreclosure crisis). Halperin thought this would be a good moment … for McCain.

It was not. McCain lost to Obama by nearly 10 million votes.

1. The Wall Street Journal and Trump’s graceful concession

Ahead of the 2020 election, former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney wrote an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal that said if he lost, Trump would “concede gracefully.”

Not only did Trump infamously not accept his loss to Biden, but also Trump litigated the matter in court, has constantly whined about the topic since, and urged his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol building, leading to his second impeachment.

It would be difficult for any person or institution to get a prediction as wrong as Mulvaney’s column, but the right has shown that if anyone is up to the task, they are.

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Watch: Right-wing Washington Post columnist quits and walks off livestream

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Conservative radio host and columnist Hugh Hewitt has quit The Washington Post following a meltdown on a livestream during a discussion of Donald Trump’s election lies.

On Friday’s edition of the Post’s “Washington Post Live” stream, columnists Jonathan Capehart and Ruth Marcus spoke about efforts by Trump to sow doubt about the election process.

“We’re news people, even though it’s the opinion section,” Hewitt complained before noting the Trump campaign’s recently successful effort to extend application times in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

“I don’t appreciate being lectured about reporting when, Hugh, many times you come here saying lots of things that aren’t based on fact,” Capehart responded.

“I won’t come back, Jonathan,” Hewitt said, taking out his earpiece and walking off the broadcast.

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The New York Post later reported that Hewitt had quit his position at The Washington Post, where he has been a columnist for years.

Trump has constantly promoted conspiracy theories around elections and how votes are counted, repeatedly lying that he won elections that he lost. He has even lied about his loss in the popular vote in 2016 after he won the Electoral College.

Hewitt has spent years using his position in the media to shill for Trump, after noting in 2016 that Trump did not have “the temperament to be president” and that if he won the Republican Party’s nomination, he was like “Stage IV cancer.”

Hewitt also claimed in 2020 that it wasn’t a big deal that Trump paid a reported $750 in taxes despite purportedly being worth billions, and claimed that Trump’s attempt to use his  presidency to dig up dirt on Joe Biden before he ran that year was a “nothingburger.” Trump was later impeached for abusing his power.

Despite this kind of rhetoric, Hewitt was frequently employed by outlets like MSNBC, NBC News, and The Washington Post. He has also been a contributor to Fox News, where promoting Trump is a key part of the operation.

Hewitt’s confrontation with the Post comes on the same day that the Trump campaign filed a frivolous complaint with the Federal Elections Commission to complain about Facebook ads purchased by the paper to highlight its reporting.

The Post purchased those ads following backlash to the decision by billionaire Post owner Jeff Bezos against publishing an editorial endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. More than 250,000 subscribers have dropped the paper since the announcement.

When she was asked about Bezos’ decision, Harris noted that he is a member of the billionaire “club” that stands to disproportionately benefit from the policies Trump hopes to enact if he is elected president.

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Trump shares totally normal fantasy of Liz Cheney facing a firing squad

Posted on by Oliver Willis

 Donald Trump fantasized about guns being put in the face of former Rep. Liz Cheney during a campaign event on Thursday night.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her where the rifle’s standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about—you know when the guns are trained on her face,” Trump said.

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Cheney responded to Trump’s comments after the video was posted online.

“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” she wrote on X. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

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Ian Sams, a senior adviser for the Harris-Walz campaign, slammed Trump’s remarks in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday morning.

“Think about the contrast between these two candidates: You have Donald Trump, who’s talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad and you have Vice President [Kamala] Harris talking about sending one to her Cabinet,” Sams said.

Trump’s comments come just days after he attempted to cast himself as a “protector” of women, “whether the women like it or not.” The venue for Trump’s attack on Cheney was an interview with disgraced former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has a long history of misogynist remarks.

Trump has expressed anger at Cheney for crossing the aisle and endorsing Harris’ presidential campaign. Cheney has said she backs Harris, despite disagreeing with her on a host of issues, because Trump represents a threat to American democracy.

At a campaign event in Wisconsin in early October, Cheney specifically called out Trump’s actions during and after the Jan.6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“He praised the rioters. He did not condemn them. That’s who Donald Trump is.”

Cheney was the vice chair of the Jan. 6 congressional committee that investigated the attack and was one of only two Republicans (the other was former Rep. Adam Kinzinger) willing to cross the aisle to do so. She was later defeated in Wyoming’s Republican congressional primary by a pro-Trump Republican, Rep. Harriet Hageman.

Both Cheney and Kinzinger also voted to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the Capitol attack. The vote was Trump’s second impeachment.

The former representatives are joined by a host of former Republican officials—including some who served in Trump’s administration—who are now supporting Harris’ campaign. 

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Read it and weep, MAGA: Trump meets dictionary definition of fascist

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Retired Gen. John Kelly, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, created a stir when he told The New York Times in an interview that Donald Trump met the dictionary definition of a fascist. Soon after, Vice President Kamala Harris said she agreed with the assessment, as have several other former Trump White House staffers who worked with Kelly.

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Trump has repeatedly fumed about the moment, while his allies like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have called on Democrats to stop echoing Kelly.

But a closer examination of the definition that Kelly appears to have cited, combined with Trump’s actions, behavior and rhetoric, show frequent examples of Trump living down to the standard cited by Kelly.

The dictionary with a definition that most closely matches Kelly’s argument is the Merriam-Webster definition of “fascism,” to which the page for “fascist” redirects.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism is “a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual.”

From early on in his time as a political figure, Trump branded the effort to elect him as the “America First” movement. And he has invoked populist rhetoric, such as promising (and failing) to open U.S. factories while jobs significantly declined on his watch.

Trump’s “America First” approach has been more accurately reflected in his habit of abandoning long-term allies, such as his rhetoric denigrating NATO nations during his presidency. Trump also put America alone when he chose to abandon the Paris agreement on climate change, reneging on the commitment made under former President Barack Obama’s administration. Trump also chose to launch a trade war with China under the “America First” philosophy, and the net result was a costly pursuit of policy that did not contribute to a growing economy and instead cost taxpayers over $230 billion.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism is about a “a centralized autocratic government.”

In his time in office, Trump used his presidential powers to create harmful policies without congressional input. His administration implemented an executive order which attempted to restrict travel to the United States from nations with large Muslim populations.

Under Trump, the Department of Homeland Security instituted the family separation policy that took young migrant children away from their families at an especially vulnerable time. The Trump administration also implemented policies like the “1776 Report,” which sought to purge narratives about marginalized voices from school curricula. He is tried to limit the use of federal funds to promote diversity initiatives.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism features “a dictatorial leader.”

Trump has admitted to this one, with his promise to be a dictator on “day one.” But even before he was first elected president, Trump complained about accurate reporting with a threat to pull broadcast licenses following unfavorable coverage. Trump has returned to this argument lately, pushing for CBS News to have its license revoked after the network said it would fact check him.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism is “characterized by severe economic and social regimentation.”

Perhaps the starkest example of this under Trump is the 6-3 decision by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which has had the effect of rescinding abortion rights for millions of Americans. Trump praised the three justices he appointed, which made up half of that six-vote majority, for their purported “genius.”

He also infamously praised neo-Nazi protesters as “very fine people,” called on police to abuse people under arrest, and signed into law the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which disproportionately favored the ultrawealthy over the middle class.

Merriam-Webster: Fascism is about “forcible suppression of opposition.”

When he occupied the presidency, Trump had federal law enforcement tear-gas and forcibly remove protesters from Lafayette Square next to the White House so that he could pose before a nearby church while holding a Bible. In his capacity as president, Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden and his family—an action that eventually led to Trump’s impeachment (the first of two).

In recent weeks—and at his racist Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday—Trump referred to his political opponents as the “enemy within” and has mused about using the military to go after them.

Trump’s actions and rhetoric bring clarity to Kelly’s remarks. No matter what the relationship between the two men was, the evidence shows Trump meeting the fascist definition line by line.

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Outside of his bubble, Trump flails at Univision town hall

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Donald Trump participated in a town hall with voters hosted by Univision on Wednesday night, and the event was a showcase of the headwinds Trump faces when he ventures outside of his right-wing bubble.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump has rarely faced questions from those who aren’t already supporters, and he has largely avoided media outlets that do not have a conservative bias. The voters who spoke to Trump at the Univision event respectfully questioned Trump on important issues, but he often veered off into unrelated ranting or avoiding the subject.

Ramiro González, a former registered Republican, told Trump he was disillusioned by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s role in inciting the attack. He asked Trump to win back his vote by explaining his behavior during the attack and his mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trump restated his claim that he did nothing wrong on the day of the attack, despite his speech that day telling supporters to “fight like hell.” Trump also lied and said there were no guns at the attack, but there were.

“That was a day of love,” Trump said, as González looked on skeptically.

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Another voter asked Trump why he pressured Republicans to kill a bipartisan border-security bill. Instead of answering, Trump filibustered and discussed his support for “strong” borders and complained about crime in cities run by Democratic officials.

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Trump also continued to promote the debunked racist conspiracy theory that he and running mate JD Vance have advanced. Trump told voters he claimed Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating domestic animals because “I was just saying what was reported,” adding that migrants “are eating other things, too, that they’re not supposed to be.”

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Trump’s poor showing on Wednesday comes after Vice President Kamala Harris was the guest of a Univision town hall last week. At that event, Harris expressed sympathy for a woman whose mother died after her immigration status held up medical care.

The troubled outing for Trump also stands in contrast to his appearance at an all-woman town hall event on Fox News, which the network aired Wednesday morning. That audience was more receptive to Trump, but the network failed to disclose that the crowd was packed with supporters picked out by the Georgia Federation of Republican Women.

At around the same time as Trump’s Univision event, Harris sat for an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. Despite his hostile questioning, Harris deftly handled the inquiry and even called out the network for deceptively editing comments from Trump.

Earlier on the day of Trump’s Univision town hall, which took place in Doral, Florida, the Harris campaign hosted a nearby press conference with families who had been impacted by Trump’s policy of separating families at the border.

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“I had no bed sheets, no bed, no nothing,” a young man identified as Billy told reporters, recounting his experience in detention. He said he was held in a room where the temperature was set to around 54 to 55 degrees.

Trump’s family-separation policy was widely condemned across the world, and the Biden-Harris administration has since devoted resources to reunifying affected families.

 

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Trump makes meeting with Ukrainian president all about Trump

Posted on by Oliver Willis

 Donald Trump met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday and used the occasion to tout his poll numbers, complain at length about his first impeachment, and praise Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

“We’re leading in the polls,” Trump told reporters at Trump Tower in New York, as Zelenskyy looked on. This is false. Trump is behind Vice President Kamala Harris in most national polls and averages of those polls, and is also trailing in many swing state polls.

After acknowledging that the war in Ukraine is a “terrible situation,” Trump claimed he has had a “great relationship” with Zelenskyy and brought up his first impeachment.

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Donald Trump: When they did the impeachment hoax, it was a hoax, just a Democrat hoax, which we won, one of the reasons we won it so easily is that when the president was asked—it was over a phone call—with the president, and he said, he could have grandstanded and played cute, but he didn’t do that. He said, “President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong.” He said it loud and clear. And the impeachment hoax died right there.

Trump was impeached in 2019 on the charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The charges stemmed from Trump’s decision to initially withhold military aid to Ukraine while attempting to solicit political dirt on his rivals, like President Joe Biden. A key piece of evidence against Trump was a phone call in which he repeatedly pressured Zelenskyy to instigate an investigation into the Biden family, which Trump has repeatedly falsely categorized as a “perfect” call.

The articles of impeachment ultimately passed in the House and Trump was later acquitted on a party-line vote in the Republican-held Senate. Trump was also later impeached for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, becoming the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice.

In addition to relegating domestic political battles, Trump also used the occasion of his discussion with the Ukrainian leader to reiterate his long-standing habit of saying good things about Putin—who launched an invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“[Putin] wants it to end, and he wants it to end as quickly as possible,” Trump said, adding, “I’m sure President Putin wants it to stop.”

According to the United Nations, over 11,520 civilians in Ukraine have been killed since the war began, with an additional 23,640 who have been wounded. The U.S. government has estimated a death toll of 500,000 for military troops of both nations.

Putin has not ceased his aggression despite global condemnation of his actions, including from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and other NATO allies.

Trump has threatened to cut U.S. aid to Ukraine if he wins the election and attacked Zelenskyy at a June rally as “the greatest salesman of all time” for securing financial support from the U.S.

“It never ends,” Trump complained.

By contrast, during her meeting on Thursday with Zelenskyy, Harris reiterated her support for Ukraine.

“The United States supports Ukraine not out of charity, but because it’s in our strategic interest,” she said.

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‘I was stunned. Sickened’: Hillary Clinton shares her Jan. 6 story

Posted on by Oliver Willis

In an interview on Thursday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed her family’s shock and anguish as they watched the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters.

Clinton appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” as part of a promotional tour for her new memoir, “Something Lost, Something Gained.”

“Bill [Clinton] told me that there were rioters who were doing what they thought to be Trump’s bidding, trying to interrupt the certification of the election in the Congress and were in full riot mode,” Clinton said. “Bill had his—literally—head in his hands, he just could not believe it. I was looking at a place I’d gone to work in for eight years, I was stunned. Sickened.”

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Clinton also noted that her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, who grew up in the public eye and has had cordial relationships with members of both parties, joined her and her husband “in a state of deep, deep worry and despair” watching the events unfold.

Clinton said her family questioned Trump’s failure to call off his supporters as they ransacked the building.

“[Trump] was enjoying what he was watching on television, that’s the only conclusion one can draw,” Clinton said. She cited Trump’s support of “raw power, intimidation, domination” and praise for authoritarian leaders like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to explain the motivation for his inaction on “one of the worst days in American history.”

Seven people died as a result of the attack and at least 174 police officers were assaulted. Trump was impeached—for a historic second time—for inciting the attack, and has been charged with federal crimes for attempting to interfere in the election process.

During his current presidential campaign, Trump has said if elected he would grant pardons to Jan. 6 rioters that have been convicted.

At the Sept. 10 presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris said the Jan. 6 events were the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” and a key element of Trump’s presidential legacy.

Harris also said, “I was at the Capitol on January 6th. I was the vice president elect. I was also an acting senator. I was there. And on that day, the president of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation's capital to desecrate our nation's capital on that day.”

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These swing-state Republicans promise to certify election even if Trump loses

Posted on by Oliver Willis

Thirty-two members of Congress have signed a “Unity Commitment” pledging to respect the results of the upcoming presidential election, certify the results, and attend the inauguration while calling for calm and opposing related political violence, according to a copy of the pledge obtained by Politico and released on Friday.

Historically, certifying election results has been a routine function of Congress, conducted without controversy or violence—until supporters of Donald Trump rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Six of the 32 pledge’s signatories are Republicans, with most coming from swing districts. They are Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, and Mike Lawler, Nick LaLota, and Anthony D’Esposito, all from New York. The remaining 26 signatories are Democrats.

Bacon, who represents Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, organized the pledge with Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. Bacon’s district is of unusual importance to the 2024 election because it exists in one of only two states (along with Maine) that allocates part of its Electoral College vote based on which candidate wins in the district. In 2020, President Joe Biden won one of his 306 electoral votes from the district, defeating Donald Trump. And Bacon was reelected to his seat in 2022 by less than 3 percentage points.

Similarly, Fitzpatrick, Lawler, Chavez-DeRemer, and D’Esposito won by just single digits that year, though LaLota won by 11 points. Those who were in Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, also voted to certify Biden’s victory over Trump. In total, 147 Republicans—139 in the House, eight in the Senate—voted against certifying the 2020 results.

In all likelihood, the Republicans who signed the Unity Commitment face constituents who are less likely to buy into the election denialism promoted by right-wing figures like Donald Trump.

By contrast, on the same day the pledge was released, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin said on CNN that he would not commit to certifying the results. Mullin’s home state has strongly supported Trump’s campaigns, with Trump winning it by over 30 points in 2020.

“I’m not going to sit up here and tell you what I’m going to do and not going to do until I see the results,” he told CNN host Pamela Brown.

Mullin’s remarks follow Trump once again lying during Tuesday’s debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that he won the 2020 race.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, similarly said in a recent interview that he would have supported fake electors in 2020 that falsely claimed Trump had won, a process which would have invalidated millions of Biden-Harris votes.

Law enforcement officials recently announced enhanced security procedures meant to prevent another Jan. 6-style event. The Secret Service on Wednesday said it had designated the upcoming certification of the presidential election as a “National Special Security Event,” following a request from Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser.

Seven deaths have been tied to the 2021 attack, as have the assaults of at least 174 police officers. Trump was impeached for a second time and has been indicted for allegedly inciting the incident.

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New Harris ad shows GOP officials shunning ‘wannabe dictator’ Trump

Posted on by Oliver Willis

 The Harris-Walz campaign on Monday released a new ad highlighting major Republican figures who have worked with Donald Trump that have now shunned him and oppose his presidential campaign.

The ad, titled “The Best People,” is set to run on Fox News Channel and in West Palm Beach, Florida (where Trump’s home/resort Mar-A-Lago is located) ahead of the upcoming presidential debate.

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Included in the ad are quotes from many who were part of Trump’s first administration: former Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, national security adviser John Bolton, and General Mark Milley. 

“Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” Pence said. 

When asked if the nation’s secrets are safe with Trump, Esper answered, “No, I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation's security at risk.”

Bolton states that “Trump will cause a lot of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump.”

The ad follows recent announcements from former Rep. Liz Cheney and former Vice President Dick Cheney—both prominent Republicans—that they would be voting for Harris in the election, citing the threat that Trump represents to democracy.

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again,” Cheney said in a statement.

Trump infamously called on Pence to subvert the U.S. Constitution following their joint loss to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential election. On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump posted on X, formerly Twitter, “States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”

Pence declined to follow Trump’s demand and instead followed federal law by voting to certify the election results. Trump then encouraged his supporters to attack the Capitol, for which he was later impeached (for a second time).

The new ad also highlights the rupture in the relationship between Trump and Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump. Milley and the other heads of America’s military branches (Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, and Coast Guard) sent out a statement in January 2021 condemning the Jan. 6 attack.

U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley

In a 2023 speech excerpted in the commercial, Milley warned of “wannabe dictators” in what was widely seen as a condemnation of Trump.

“We are unique among the world’s militaries. We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator,” Milley said. “And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America—and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

As part of his campaign, Trump has said he would use the power of the presidency in a second term to round up and mass deport undocumented immigrants. Trump has also said he would seek retribution against his political enemies.

Since being sworn into office in 2021, Biden has used the presidency to advocate for freedom and has warned about the autocratic threat from Trump and the Republican Party. In his July address from the Oval Office announcing his decision to step down from the presidential race, Biden said the move was motivated by his support for democracy.

“The great thing about America is, here, kings and dictators do not rule. The people do. History is in your hands, the idea of America lies in your hands,” Biden said.

“Freedom” has been the central theme of Harris’ campaign since she took over from Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee. She has taken Trump to task for his decisions that directly led to Roe v. Wade being overturned and abortion rights being upended, as well as his actions to subvert democracy.

Speaking in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in August, at the same site where Trump accepted the Republican nomination a few weeks before, Harris summarized the campaign’s theme.

“We are witnessing across our nation a full-on attack on hard-fought, hard-won, fundamental freedoms and rights across our nation, like the freedom to vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride,” Harris said.

Sign here: Harris taps Tim Walz. Now let’s defeat Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot.