What Republicans are planning after 2020’s chaos at a Detroit vote tally. A surprise move by the FDA allows compounded weight-loss drugs to stay in production. And a foot found on Mount Everest might belong to climber who disappeared 100 years ago.
Here’s what to know today.
How Trump allies stoked election chaos in 2020 — and what they’re planning for 2024
One day after the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump claimed that “surprise ballot dumps” were erasing his leads in several “Democrat run & controlled states.” Though Trump’s claim was categorically false, his supporters hurried to what was then called TCF Convention Center in downtown Detroit, where 170,000 mail ballots were being counted.
What followed was chaos. After officials stopped letting poll observers from both parties in, Trump supporters argued with police and election officials, banging on windows and chanting “stop the count” outside a room of poll workers tabulating military ballots.
Nearly four years later, the mayhem at the TCF Center is burned into the minds of many election officials, lawyers and poll watchers. Not only do those events open a unique window into how vigilante volunteers, misinformation and distrust in the election system can damage democracy; it offers a road map for what could happen this year.
An NBC News investigation can now report the extent of the Republican Party and Trump campaign’s involvement in the TCF Center ordeal in 2020. It included more people linked to the Trump campaign than previously known.
And a video of a training session in Michigan for 2024 poll watchers shows how the RNC is giving them the tools to challenge votes and few guardrails on what makes a challenge legitimate.
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More election coverage:
➡️ Trump’s recent comments about Detroit and other Democratic-run cities continue a long-running theme in his rhetoric.
➡️ Harris sharpened her attacks on Trump at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, calling him “increasingly unstable and unhinged.”
➡️ How Harris’ campaign aims to boost her popularity among Pennsylvania’s educated surburbanites.
➡️ The Harris campaign has launched its clearest effort yet to target Black male voters.
➡️ Half of voters are planning to cast their ballots early, and a deep partisan divide on early voting remains, according to an NBC News poll.
➡️ Former President Bill Clinton said the election will come down to whether there is a fair and transparent vote tally.
➡️ House Speaker Mike Johnson predicts the election will reflect “a demographic shift” showing larger blocs of voters helping elect Republicans.
Maine mass shooting survivors and victims’ families claim U.S. military negligence
The survivors and families of victims of last year’s mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, will pursue negligence claims against the federal government that could pave the way for 100 individual lawsuits, lawyers representing them said. The claimants will serve legal notices of their intent to sue the Department of Defense, the Army and Keller Army Community Hospital, in West Point, New York, alleging they failed to respond to warning signs and threats that the gunman, Robert Card, made in the months before he killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar.
Key reports released in recent months have shed light on possible missteps by the military, law enforcement officers and hospital staff members and how the shooting might have been averted. One report mentions Card’s stay in a psychiatric hospital months before the shooting, while another details how Card’s family alerted local authorities about his deteriorating mental health. Read the full story.
FDA lets production resume on compounded weight loss drug
Compounding pharmacists and weight-loss drug patients scored a major victory when the FDA last week allowed for the production of copycat versions of tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s diabetes and weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound. Earlier this month, the agency said that a tirzepatide shortage was resolved, which meant that compounding pharmacists had to stop filling prescriptions for the drug. But after a compounding trade group filed a lawsuit, the FDA said it would re-evaluate its decision and wouldn’t “take action” against the plaintiffs and their members if they make compounded tirzepatide.
The FDA’s decision was met with relief from some pharmacists and patients. Eli Lilly insists their drugs are not in shortage. One doctor in North Carolina said he believes the lawsuit is less about a shortage and more about the lucrative nature of compounded weight-loss medications. In other words, money.
Read All About It
- Two men who were shot when a gunman tried to assassinate Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally said in an exclusive interview that the Secret Service failed them and the former president.
- A pair of giant pandas — 3-year-old male Bao Li and 3-year-old female Qing Bao — began their journey from China to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo for decade-long residency.
- Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, linking them to the murder of a Sikh separatist leader, in a major deterioration of relations between the two countries.
- The trial for a man accused in the 2017 murders of two Indiana teens has begun, and answers to long-standing questions and tangled connections may finally come to light.
- The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is back after a four-year hiatus, featuring famous past “angels” and an eye toward reflecting “who we are today.”
Staff Pick: Famed climber’s remains possibly found after 100 years
What would you do if you found a foot on a hike? I’d be astonished. It turns out that’s what happened recently to a National Geographic documentary crew on Mount Everest. Perhaps more surprising is because the disembodied foot could belong to a famed climber who disappeared with a climbing partner during an expedition 100 years ago. It will have to undergo DNA testing to confirm who it belonged to, but the incredible finding could solve a mystery about the doomed pair important among climbers and historians alike. — Elizabeth Robinson, newsletter editor
NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified
From Petsmart to Ikea, NBC Select’s editors rounded up the best sales across the internet this week. Plus, check out these must-read books about politics and history.
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