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‘What’s He Confessing to?’: Trump’s Mike Johnson ‘Secret’ Draws Electoral College Concerns
Donald Trump’s six-hour Madison Square Garden rally Sunday night, filled with “anger, vitriol and racist threats,” began almost immediately with the “joke heard around the world” — an attack calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean” — and ended with 80 minutes of Donald Trump telling “scores of lies.”
The racist broadside was from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who also told the MAGA crowd: “And these Latinos, they love making babies, too, just know that. They do, they do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country.”
As Mediaite reported, Hinchcliffe, pointing to a Black man in the audience, “went with what seemed like an off-the-cuff ‘joke.'”
“That’s cool,” he said, “a Black guy with a thing on his head. What the hell is that, a lamp shade? Look at this guy! Oh, my goodness. Wow! I’m just kidding, that’s one of my buddies. We had a Halloween party last night. We had fun — we carved watermelons together. It was awesome!”
READ MORE: ‘Ten-Cent Dictator’: Trump Threatens Mass Arrests of Opponents in ‘Cease and Desist’ Post
The New York Times called it: “Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism.”
“The inflammatory rally was a capstone for an increasingly aggrieved campaign for Donald Trump, whose rhetoric has grown darker and more menacing,” the paper of record declared.
But during those 80 minutes Donald Trump made one statement that has constitutional law and other experts concerned.
Referencing Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Trump said: “I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over.”
Suggesting the comment was “potentially…sinister,” Politico Playbook reported it “could be a reference to the House settling a contested election.”
Historian Heather Cox Richardson in her popular Substack newsletter wrote: “It seems possible—probable, even—that Trump was alluding to putting in play the plan his people tried in 2020. That plan was to create enough chaos over the certification of electoral votes in the states to throw the election into the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation gets a single vote, so if the Republicans have control of more states than the Democrats, Trump could pull out a victory even if he had dramatically lost the popular vote.”
“Since he has made virtually no effort to win votes in 2024,” she added, “this seems his likely plan.”
READ MORE: ‘Cowardice’: Washington Post Faces Backlash After Refusing to Endorse in Presidential Race
Professor of law Melissa Murray, a constitutional law expert and co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast, appears to agree.
“So, the plan is to have an Electoral College tie (which will likely require contesting swing state vote counts),” she writes. “A tie in the Electoral College will then require a vote in the House of Representatives, where the GOP, led by Speaker Johnson, has a (thin) majority….”
Harvard University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus Laurence Tribe, considered “the Nation’s preeminent constitutional scholar,” delivered a warning.
“At his racist MSG rally, Trump spoke of the ‘little secret’ he and Mike Johnson would unveil after the people’s Nov 5 votes have been cast. He made clear it would involve the House — and how he plans to use its 50 State delegations to wreak havoc and hand him back ‘his’ power.”
Attorney Jacob Glick, who served as investigative counsel on the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack wrote: “Trump hinting at ‘secret’ with Mike Johnson to be revealed post-election.”
“Clearest indication yet that if Trump loses,” Glick added, “the plan is to sow enough doubt about election results in key states so that the House can declare a contingent election and proclaim Trump the victor.”
Constitutional and civil rights attorney Andrew L. Seidel, pointing to the clips of Trump’s remarks, wrote: “I *think* this was to Mike Johnson and, if so, he’s signaling that Republicans will try to do the thing that keeps me up at night: screw around with the Electoral College votes so that the House itself votes on the president instead. Each state gets one vote. Trump wins with 26.”
“This is known as the Contingent Election of the President and was—although many people still don’t fully realize it—part of the goal behind January 6th,” he added.
The Nation’s justice correspondent, Elie Mystal, pointing to the clip below, asked: “What is he confessing to here?”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Trump: I think with our little secret we are gonna do really well with the house, our little secret is having a big impact, he and I have a little secret, we will tell you what it is when the race is over pic.twitter.com/sKXCLblyLO
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 28, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Malignant Narcissism’: Trump Is an ‘Existential Threat to Democracy’ Health Experts Warn
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
