ABC Seems to Imply MAGA Could Carry Out Violence Against Election Workers on Tuesday

In a case of bizarre story placement during the second hour (and in a newscast seemingly barren of staff and two extra rounds of news briefs), ABC’s Good Morning America diverged from its usual behavior of playing corporate whore for Disney overlords to add a fourth midterms segment that strongly implied Georgia election workers and elsewhere could face threats to their lives on Tuesday from Trump voters.

Instead of promoting new Disney cruises or theme park rides as though it were news, the virulent Trump-hating newscast went down this divisive road, which not surprisingly began with co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos lamenting that election workers are “[u]nder pressure after years of false claims from President Trump and his refusal to accept the 2020 results.”

Georgia-based senior national correspondent Steve Osunsami relayed that, in an election when “about four million Georgians will have voted,” Peach State “election workers say that as Georgia becomes even more of a swing state, they become more concerned about their own personal safety and interference from Washington.”

Like any piece of advocacy disguised as journalism, Osunsami made sure to have an anecdote and a tailor-made interview subject. Here, a 58-year-old Paulding County election worker lamented that, in Osunsami’s retelling, “voters who are overwhelmed with misinformation will sometimes question whether she’s actually counting their ballots.”

The two discussed 2020 and concerns about violence, which Osunsami cloaked as vague allusions to “election workers” being “worried about their safety” (click “expand”):

DEIDRE HOLDEN: Let’s say 2020. The question was, who really won the election? Now the question has shifted from that to, does my vote really count? And, you know, I try to explain, you know, we have nothing to hide. You’re welcome to come in and watch the process.

OSUNSAMI [TO HOLDEN]: What are some of the other rumors or things you’ve had to knock down?

HOLDEN: So, you know, the big issue in Georgia has been the QR code on the ballot. What is it actually reading?

OSUNSAMI: After voters have printed their ballots, it’s the QR code that tells the scanners what the voter decided.

HOLDEN: You know, people don’t trust the QR code. They don’t believe that the scanners are tabulating the vote as it is put in there.

OSUNSAMI: This is a county where the President has won three times, and President Trump is helping to drive the suspicions, accusing election officials in Georgia and several other states of running bad elections. In Paulding County, election workers say they’re worried about their safety.

Translation? The fear is Trumpers are going to commit an act of terrorism. Osunsami even showed extreme cases of role-playing in trainings with an angry woman harassing poll watchers and collapsing on site. He concluded with more jabs at Trump:

The Trump administration is very serious about possibly jailing election workers who cross their line, and it’s got election workers across the country worried about what happened here in Fulton County, Georgia, in January, when the federal government came down and seized thousands of ballots. It’s one of the main reasons why the secretary of state, who is outgoing, says that he is promising a clean election and a vote that should be counted here by midnight on Election Day, guys.

Stephanopoulos was enamored, praising Osunsami for the “real eye-opening report.”

Earlier in the show, correspondent Jay O’Brien opened both the first and second hours with reports following near-identical scripts to CBS and NBC in using a Monday night stop by President Trump in Mississippi as proof it will join Texas in a blue romp from coast-to-coast.

Later, O’Brien concluded with an aside about Justice Department legal challenges that he and Stephanopoulos painted as nefarious (click “expand”):

STEPHANOPOULOS: The President’s activities aside, the Justice Department also continuing its efforts to interfere in the elections, facing some pushback from state officials and the courts.

O’BRIEN: That’s right, George. The Department of Justice demanded that Washington state pull some 400 ballots that it alleged belong to noncitizens. The secretary of state there accuses the Department of Justice of trying to sow doubt in the election before a single vote has even been counted. There’s a hearing today in California after a federal appeals court declined to step in after the DOJ made a similar demand for some 20,000 ballots there, and it all comes, remember, George, after the Department of Justice brought that extraordinary lawsuit in Alaska seeking to challenge the results of that race if the Republican narrowly wins there, because there are two men named Dan Sullivan on the ballot. And the DOJ says that may confuse voters, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And other efforts to use the Postal Service were rejected by the Supreme Court.

The second segment consisted of blue-slanted horse race coverage from Trump-hating correspondent Rachel Scott (click “expand”):

STEPHANOPOULOS: Democrats favored to take the House. The Senate, a closer call.

SCOTT: Yeah, it is a closer call, George. Seven days to go. Let’s take a look at where things stand on the map right now. 35 Senate races up for grabs this election. But the path to the majority, it is going to run through these states. These are the toss-up races. These are the closest races in the country, stretching from Alaska all the way to Maine. The number that we’re watching for by the end of the night: Democrats need to net at least four seats in order to take control of the Senate. That means they’re going to have to flip at least two states that President Trump won by double digits, but when you talk to Democrats, they’re certainly feeling like there is an opening here, especially because they’re seeing tighter-than-expected races in a state like Kansas, a red state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in nearly 100 years. All of that, though, is putting Republicans on the defensive. And you just heard it there from Jay. But just take a look at where President Trump is spending the final days of this campaign. We’re talking about campaigning in deep-red Mississippi. He’s going to Texas today for a fourth time. Meanwhile, it is Democrats who are on offense here. They’re deploying one of their biggest surrogates, former President Barack Obama, to the state of Georgia this week, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Rachel, so much of this environment is being shaped by high prices and the President’s low approval ratings.

SCOTT: Yes. So let’s take a look at where that stands. Poll after poll shows that President Trump is seeing record-low approval ratings, and I just want you to take a look at these numbers: 66 percent of Americans — a whopping 66 percent — disapprove of the President’s job performance. Only 32 percent approve of the President’s current job in office right now, and then we took a look at what is driving voters to the polls this election. And here’s no surprise: the economy is at the top of this list, at 23 percent. What’s also interesting about this Reuters/Ipsos poll: it also shows that the majority of Americans believe that the economy is on the wrong track.

Four years ago, ABC’s Good Morning America spent the days leading up to the midterms not seeking to bury President Joe Biden’s Democrat Party, but insisted to voters they feel their pain on gas prices and inflation.

To see the relevant ABC transcript from October 27, click here.