CBS News
Two states’ top election officials talk about threats arising from election denialism — on “The Takeout”
![](https://assets1.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2023/01/28/9a29ddd6-897f-404c-a494-d34692bf5c24/thumbnail/1200x630/0f873fb3249553db3f6052907618864b/ap23027699145440.jpg?v=39487f160c45192867463e7cb2b51dad)
As the Supreme Court weighs whether Colorado can bar former President Donald Trump from its primary, two secretaries of state, one Republican and one Democrat, agree that election denialism poses a threat to local officials but clash on whether Trump must be convicted of a criminal offense to be excluded from the ballot.
“He hasn’t been tried, and so I don’t want the arbitrary authority as a secretary of saying, ‘Well, I think you did so, therefore I can take you off the ballot,'” Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican, said in a conversation recorded on Feb. 6, two days before the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump’s 14th Amendment case. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, disagreed, asserting that the law does not require Trump to be found guilty of insurrection to disqualify him from holding office.
Both secretaries, who were in Washington, D.C., to attend a conference, joined CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett on this week’s episode of “The Takeout” to discuss the heightened pressures on local election officials in both of their home states. While Fontes maintains that elections in Arizona remain fair and reliable, he acknowledged that general discontent has escalated because of the spread of misinformation, resulting in conspiracy theoriesand direct threats.
“We’ve got [a clerk] in Arizona who had two of her dogs poisoned as a means of intimidation,” Fontes said, revealing that his family has also been threatened. He added, “They’re destroying the faith that we have in one another as citizens, that civic faith that we should be able to share even across party lines.”
Schwab said many senior election officials resigned after the pandemic, leaving his state with a less experienced workforce running elections. There’s been a spike in threats in Kansas, too, he said, telling the story of one county clerk who received a phone call at her office from someone claiming to be parked outside her elderly parents’ home. “But it’s a county of 5,000 people,” he said. “I mean, who’s going to do a presidential fraud election in a county of 5,000?”
Fontes criticized the Department of Justice for an apparent lack of urgency in investigating and prosecuting individuals involved in harassing election officials. “I consider that to be domestic terrorism,” he said. “I mean, the definition of terrorism is the threat or use of violence against someone to reach a political end. And when you’re threatening election officials, it’s a political end.”
Both secretaries agreed that there’s money to be made in election denialism. “This has become an industry,” Schwab said. He mentioned Douglas Frank, a prominent election conspiracy theorist: “I know people that give Dr. Frank $200 a month to help his cause. I’m like — but he’s been disproven.”
He observed that profiting from election denial goes back to the 2000 Bush v. Gore election but noted that in that case, election lawyers were making all the money. Today’s denialists are notably different, he said. “Now it’s not the attorneys,” Schwab said. “Now, it’s people who can get clicks on YouTube and make money by spreading similar conspiracies that in a lawsuit never would get to court. But I don’t have to go to court, I just need public opinion to cut me a check.”
Fontes maintains that election officials are now entering the field “with eyes wide open” and a clear understanding of the heightened pressures in the current environment. “They are dedicated to making sure that democracy works,” he asserted. “Not just for Arizona, but for the rest of the country.”
Executive producer: Arden Farhi
Producers: Jamie Benson, Jacob Rosen, Sara Cook and Eleanor Watson
CBSN Production: Eric Soussanin
Show email: TakeoutPodcast@cbsnews.com
Twitter: @TakeoutPodcast
Instagram: @TakeoutPodcast
Facebook: Facebook.com/TakeoutPodcast
CBS News
What to expect from 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans
![](https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2024/07/05/ec5e3c7d-6eae-472a-b493-6e4da3ced1ac/thumbnail/1200x630/59d8cfffe06517e55f46a7b3c845b33e/cbsn-fusion-essence-festival-of-culture-underway-in-new-orleans-with-vp-kamala-harris-expected-to-appear-thumbnail.jpg?v=57e8061b2038d609da26e467de5ddfb8)
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
GOP, Democratic strategists on Biden’s next steps with calls for him to drop out growing
![](https://assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2024/07/05/b2f23e3f-880a-4c0f-835e-7ceb87fca176/thumbnail/1200x630/95ecdc5689216a39e3b9e1ee4237cf80/cbsn-fusion-gop-democratic-strategists-on-if-biden-will-drop-out-of-2024-race-thumbnail.jpg?v=57e8061b2038d609da26e467de5ddfb8)
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
CBS News
U.S. troops leaving Niger bases this weekend and in August after coup, officials say
![](https://assets1.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2024/07/05/6cfc4739-4fdf-4c12-9be2-04f750d50f66/thumbnail/1200x630/545f4cea7a64039578064d00d1d3fa25/ap24187543850946.jpg?v=57e8061b2038d609da26e467de5ddfb8)
The U.S. will remove all its forces and equipment from a small base in Niger this weekend and fewer than 500 remaining troops will leave a critical drone base in the West African country in August, ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline set in an agreement with the new ruling junta, the American commander there said Friday.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Kenneth Ekman said in an interview that a number of small teams of 10-20 U.S. troops, including special operations forces, have moved to other countries in West Africa. But the bulk of the forces will go, at least initially, to Europe.
Tech. Sgt. Christopher Dyer / AP
Niger’s ouster of American troops following a coup last year has broad ramifications for the U.S. because it is forcing troops to abandon the critical drone base that was used for counterterrorism missions in the Sahel.
Ekman and other U.S. military leaders have said other West African nations want to work with the U.S. and may be open to an expanded American presence. He did not detail the locations, but other U.S. officials have pointed to the Ivory Coast and Ghana as examples.
Ekman, who serves as the director for strategy at U.S. Africa Command, is leading the U.S. military withdrawal from the small base at the airport in Niger’s capital of Niamey and from the larger counterterrorism base in the city of Agadez. He said there will be a ceremony Sunday marking the completed pullout from the airport base, then those final 100 troops and the last C-17 transport aircraft will depart.
Speaking to reporters from The Associated Press and Reuters from the U.S. embassy in Niamey, Ekman said that while portable buildings and vehicles that are no longer useful will be left behind, a lot of larger equipment will be pulled out. For example, he said 18 4,000-pound (1,800-kilograms) generators worth more than $1 million each will be taken out of Agadez.
Unlike the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he said the U.S. is not destroying equipment or facilities as it leaves.
“Our goal in the execution is, leave things in as good a state as possible,” he said. “If we went out and left it a wreck or we went out spitefully, or if we destroyed things as we went, we’d be foreclosing options” for future security relations.
AFP via Getty
Niger’s ruling junta ordered U.S. forces out of the country in the wake of last July’s ouster of the country’s democratically elected president by mutinous soldiers. French forces had also been asked to leave as the junta turned to the Russian mercenary group Wagner for security assistance.
Washington officially designated the military takeover as a coup in October, triggering U.S. laws restricting the military support and aid.