The World and Everything in It — November 25, 2020

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Changes are evident to the Republican party after this election. We’ll talk about the future of the GOP.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday.

Also World Tour. 

Plus, part two of our story from Paradise, California. Two years ago it was the site of the state’s worst fire disaster.

And commentator Cal Thomas on voter fraud and legal proof.

REICHARD: It’s Wednesday, November 25th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden formally introduces national security team » President-elect Joe Biden formally introduced his national security team on Tuesday, declaring—quote—“America is back.”

Biden said he’s spoken with about 20 world leaders in recent days and told them his administration will stress cooperation with its allies. 

BIDEN: I’ve been struck by how much they’re looking forward to the United States reasserting its historic role as a global leader. 

Biden’s picks are all Washington veterans with ties to the Obama administration. 

They include Tony Blinken, nominated for Secretary of State, Alejandro Mayorkas for Homeland Security chief and Jake Sullivan for national security adviser.

BIDEN: Collectively, this team has secured some of the most defining national security and diplomatic achievements in recent memory, made possible through decades of experience working with our partners. 

Meantime, the Trump administration is making good on President Trump’s statement on Monday that his team would begin cooperating with the transition.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the transition will be “professional” and “cooperative.”

AZAR: In the best spirit of looking out for the health and wellbeing of the American people, and in particular, saving lives through this COVID-19 pandemic. 

He also said officials have begun briefing Biden’s team on plans to distribute coronavirus vaccines.

LA County faces possible stay-home order ahead of Thanksgiving » The first Americans to get vaccinated could receive their first dose in about two weeks. But that’s not soon enough to keep the virus from upending holiday plans. 

Americans living in the nation’s largest county are facing a possible stay-home order just before Thanksgiving. 

Los Angeles County officials say the coronavirus has surged past the threshold set by health officials to trigger one with 4,500 cases per day. 

Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer met with county supervisors on Tuesday about next steps. If the county orders a hard lockdown, it would be the first such action since mid-March. 

California Governor Gavin Newsom said daily infections are worse than ever statewide. 

NEWSOM: You always look at the seven and 14-day averages. That seven-day average getting close to now 12,000 We simply have not seen this since the beginning of the pandemic. 

And hospitalizations in the state jumped almost 80 percent over the past two weeks. 

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti warned—quoting here—“At this rate, our hospitals won’t have any spare beds by Christmas time.”

On Tuesday, a California judge rejected a request from a restaurant industry group to block LA County from reinstating a ban on outdoor dining. The group said the plan would devastate businesses and workers.

OxyContin maker pleads guilty to criminal charges » The maker of the drug OxyContin pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal charges for its role in the opioid epidemic. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports. 

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: A federal judge in New Jersey gaveled in a virtual hearing in the trial of Purdue Pharma. 

The company made the drug OxyContin. And prosecutors say it pushed Oxy to the public more like a massive corporate drug dealer than a pharmaceutical company. 

On Tuesday, Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to three criminal charges, admitting to its role in the opioid crisis. 

The drugmaker confessed to shady practices meant to persuade or even pay doctors to overprescribe its addictive painkillers. 

Purdue Pharma also acknowledged that it misled the Drug Enforcement Administration and impeded the DEA’s efforts to combat the addiction crisis.

The guilty pleas were part of a criminal and civil settlement announced last month with the Justice Department. It includes more than $8 billion in penalties and forfeitures. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown. 

China launches moon mission » AUDIO: [SOUND OF LAUNCH]

China launched a bold space mission on Tuesday to bring back rocks and debris from the moon’s surface for the first time in more than 40 years. 

The spacecraft blasted off on Monday and is expected to reach the moon this week. 

If successful, it would be a major advance for China’s space program. 

The mission’s key task is to drill almost 7 feet beneath the moon’s surface and scoop up about 4 pounds of rocks and debris. 

That would offer the first chance for scientists to study newly obtained lunar material since American and Russian missions of the 1960s and 70s.

U.S., Russian warships face off in territory dispute » Moscow says a Russian warship threatened to ram a U.S. Navy warship in a territory dispute Tuesday. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports. 

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: The Kremlin claims the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain was trespassing in its waters. 

And Moscow said a Russian warship threatened to ram the U.S. Navy vessel before chasing it away.

It said the face-off occurred in the Sea of Japan in the Peter the Great Bay, which is named after a Russian czar.

But the U.S. Navy said the McCain was sailing in international waters. It added that the Kremlin draws the boundaries of its territory wider than what it’s entitled to. 

As for Russia’s claim that it chased the U.S. warship out of its waters, the Navy’s 7th Fleet said that never happened.  

It stated that “the United States will never bow in intimidation or be coerced into accepting illegitimate maritime claims.” End quote.

And the U.S. Navy has since dispatched another warship to the area to challenge Russia’s claims. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: the future of the Republican Party.

Plus, Cal Thomas on previous claims of voter fraud.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 25th of November, 2020. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: the future of the Republican Party.

Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for president in 2016 as an outsider. He was so different that nobody expected him to appeal to traditional conservative voters. But he did. And four years later, he has completely remade the Republican Party in his image.

REICHARD: The question now is, will the GOP continue to be the party of Trump? House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California says absolutely.

MCCARTHY: The president, regardless of whether he’s president again, or citizen Trump, I think he will continue to play a part in this nation. I look at the number of members who got elected, they got elected under President Trump. The president helped them get elected in the process as well. And we expanded the party. So how is the party going to look different, it’s going to look broader.

EICHER: Well, it is Washington Wednesday. And joining us now to talk about the state of the GOP is our old friend Henry Olsen. He’s a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a columnist for The Washington Post.

It’s been awhile. Welcome back!

HENRY OLSEN, GUEST: Thanks for having me back.

EICHER: President Trump appealed to working-class voters in a way no Republican since Ronald Reagan has been able to do. And the positions he took to do that—big spending, and protectionist trade policies—are a departure from what we’ve understood as small-government Republicanism. Is this the future of the Republican Party?

OLSEN: I think that something like that has to be the future, that the Republican Party cannot be a conservative party if it does not add new members. And it cannot be a conservative party by adding more members of the upper classes, because the upper classes increasingly embrace social liberalism and that is inconsistent with the party whose electoral base are social conservatives. So, the key has always been to find people who are either social conservatives but economic moderates. Or people who are economic moderates who are indifferent to social issues. And that is exactly what Donald Trump did in his 2016 and 2020 campaigns. I think he’s showing, also, that there are a number of non-white voters who will respond to precisely that mix and expand the Republican base while maintaining its genuine, conservative nature.

EICHER: In 2017, you wrote a book called The Working Class Republican. And in it you argue that Ronald Reagan was an FDR Conservative. By that you mean that his policies more closely aligned with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal than people realize. And you urge the GOP to rediscover and return to the basic elements of that vision.

Unpack that a little bit and then talk about how that could factor into the crossroads the party finds itself in now.

OLSEN: Yeah, by that what I meant was that FDR—as understood by the American public—was somebody who wanted to reform not transform American government. And what FDR did was establish government action to help individuals in need as a legitimate feature of daily government. And before FDR that was a disputed question and certainly where it was undisputed was embraced in a limited way after FDR. It is much clearer that that’s what Americans want and expect. Many conservatives continue to reject that idea. They want to return to pre-FDR world where the federal government is extremely limited in what it does and the state governments are much more limited. But that’s not where the American public is. And what Ronald Reagan understood was that he could move America toward more freedom and liberty by not disputing the premise and interpreting the details. And Donald Trump effectively did the same thing. A wise Republican Party would do the same thing and understand that by not fighting theoretical battles that it can’t win, it can win political battles that it can and actually enhance the cause of freedom.

EICHER: Let’s talk about conservative social issues. There have been calls for the party to stop emphasizing issues like abortion and focus more on economic issues. But President Trump didn’t really do that. He embraced issues important to social conservatives, especially evangelicals. How do you think that will factor into the future of the party?

OLSEN: I think it depends on what you mean by social conservatism. If social conservative is code for Christian triumphalism, then that’s a bad way to go. Increasingly Americans are not weekly church congregants in an orthodox Christian church. If what it means is focusing on life, faith, and family—giving freedom for faith and focusing on protecting life and family structure—then you’ll see that actually a majority of Americans are sympathetic to social conservatism and that’s something that Donald Trump demonstrated. 

The number of people who are economically conservative and socially liberal are politically inconsequential and Republicans have fallen prey to exaggerating this number of people in the electorate and try to chase the will of the whisk. When, in fact, there is a much larger number of people who could be relied on who are economically moderate and socially moderately conservative. Going in that direction is what Donald Trump did. And had he been more circumspect in his personality and the way in which he engaged in public issues, he would have easily won the election. The next Republican president will be and could easily also win election.

EICHER: My definition of social conservatism is toward the latter and not the former. And I encapsulate that into a single word: judges. And Trump didn’t shy away from that. And that’s what I meant to get at.

OLSEN: Yeah, I mean, it’s important, though, to understand that as the nomination of Judge Roy Moore in Alabama demonstrates there are elements within social conservatism for whom some form of Christian theology or Christian supremacy is not far from the surface. And that’s not the direction that — freedom for religion but not the domination of a particular religious creed is the direction that social conservatism finds its sweet spot. And if you move in that direction, you in fact find many people who are non-Christians or non-believers agreeing with many elements of social conservatism and it’s not a loser, as expressed in that direction. It’s actually quite a winner.

EICHER: Absolutely. And I think the Republican Party of Alabama would agree with that, moving on from Roy Moore as it did … and going with Tommy Tuberville and winning back that Senate seat. But speaking of the Senate … it’ll be January before we know who will control the Senate going forward. Even if they retain a very slim Senate majority, Republicans will no longer be in the driver’s seat when it comes to policy. But doesn’t that make it a bit easier for the GOP to reinvent itself in the policy wilderness … 

OLSEN: It’s always easier to reinvent when you’re in the wilderness because you don’t have the big dog in the Oval Office to take on. Whenever somebody occupies the Oval Office, they are the agenda-setter for American political discussion. We will see many people who will be competing for what I think is the rational way forward, which is the interpreter of Trump, not the slavish follower of Trump. And then you’ll have people who will obviously disagree with that. But there are people within the Republican Party who would like to return to the pre-Trump days and don’t want these sorts of unorthodox viewpoints gaining deep roots. That’s much easier to do out of power than in power. I suspect that what you’ll see in Congress is opposition to many Biden administration initiatives. Certainly they have a block on anything serious going through Congress, as long as they maintain control of the Senate. And we’ll hopefully also see some attempts at reasonable moderation in working with the Biden administration to demonstrate to suburban moderates and moderately conservative voters that the GOP can be trusted in power. It doesn’t take much to gain in those areas for the GOP to move into a majority status. And that should be what congressional leaders are hoping to do.

EICHER: President Trump effectively became the Republican Party platform for the last four years. Do you think the party will wait for someone to fill that vacuum, in effect letting the leader drive the policy? Or do you get the sense that there’s momentum now to rebuild the platform and let that propel the next leader forward?

OLSEN: There’ll be a dispute within the party. I don’t think that there will be a unified House and Senate alternative. That’s not the way Senate Majority Leader McConnell operates. I like to use a chess analogy: he likes to play black not white. Having a platform means that you’re taking the first move. Playing black means that you’re reacting. He’s a superb tactician at playing black and he doesn’t like to be the person who steps out front. In reality, in American politics, the presidential nominee always sets the agenda, no matter what the agenda had been set by a congressional minority previously. And while there will likely be some sort of alternative that maybe the House Republicans will present, it won’t be the dominating factor. This battle is going to be fought out in the party. Over the next four years there will be many alternatives. There will be no uniform alternative that is presented prior to the presidential primaries in 2024 and the winner will hold the upper hand in determining what the platform is going to be.

EICHER: Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a columnist for The Washington Post. Henry, good to talk with you. Thanks so much.

OLSEN: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour with Africa reporter Onize Ohikere.

ONIZE OHIKERE, REPORTER: Al Qaeda names new North Africa leader—We start today here in Africa.

Al-Qaeda has chosen a new leader for its North Africa branch. Abu Obaida Yusuf al-Annabi is an Algerian terrorist on the U.S. blacklist since 2015. He frequently appears in al-Qaeda’s propaganda videos, and reportedly helped plan the Algiers bombings in 2007. Those attacks killed almost 800 people.

Al-Annabi replaces the North Africa group’s former leader, Abdelmalek Droukdel. French forces killed him in June.

The North Africa al-Qaeda branch terrorizes large swaths of Algeria, Mali, Libya, and Niger. The group has also made millions of dollars abducting foreigners for ransom.

Guatemala budget protests—Next, we go to Central America.

AUDIO: [GUATEMALA PROTESTERS CHANTING (SPANISH)]

Protesters set fire to Guatemala’s congressional building on Saturday. Hundreds of people threw rocks and charged at riot police, who responded with tear gas. Fourteen people were injured.

The crowds want President Alejandro Giammettei to resign, after the government passed a new budget plan last week. It was the largest proposed budget in the nation’s history, almost $13 billion. Protesters said it prioritized big infrastructure projects over public health and education services.

The protests went on for two days. And on Monday…

AUDIO: [Guatemalan Congress  (SPANISH)]

…the speaker of congress announced the government will scrap the controversial budget plan.

He did not say what a new budget might look like, or how it might be different. Lawmakers have until December to make a new plan.

Peru gets its third president in a week—Next, we head to South America.

AUDIO: [PERU’S NATIONAL ANTHEM]

Peru has swore in its third president in just over a week.

AUDIO: [FRANCISCO SAGASTI OATH OF OFFICE (SPANISH)]

Francisco Sagasti took the oath of office during a special session of the legislature.

Earlier this month, Peru’s congress voted to impeach former President Martin Vizcarra following allegations of corruption. The legislature replaced him with Manuel Merino. But that decision sparked mass protests across the country and Merino resigned after just five days. Now, Sagasti will have five months to straighten things out before the next round of elections. Those are scheduled for April 2021.

France delays Black Friday sales—And finally, we end today in Europe.

AUDIO: [BRUNO LEMAIRE (FRENCH)]

France is putting Black Friday on hold. Last week, the government got local stores as well as online giants like Amazon to agree to postpone plans for the holiday sale.

France is in the middle of yet another coronavirus lockdown, and stores deemed non-essential are shuttered. The government hopes to give those shops a chance to take advantage of the consumer splurge once restrictions are lifted. France’s economy minister negotiated the deal with supermarkets and online retailers. They agreed to push Black Friday back a week to December 4th with the understanding that non-essential businesses will have been allowed to reopen by then.

That’s this week’s World Tour. Reporting for WORLD, I’m Onize Ohikere in Abuja, Nigeria.

NICK EICHER, HOST: President Trump issued a presidential pardon at the White House on Tuesday.

TRUMP: Corn, I hereby grant you a full pardon. Thank you, Corn.

Corn and his companion turkey Cob were the two selected for the annual White House ceremony. They held a vote and Corn was the winner—no recounts! No lawsuits! We’ll have a peaceful transfer! Don’t worry!

So Corn won the official pardon and Cob, well, he’s not the winner, but good news for him: he’s not dinner. The two will live out their days on the farm.

The tradition started during the George H.W. Bush presidency. But President Trump said its roots go back much further…

TRUMP: The first turkey to dodge the White House dinner table received unofficial clemency when Abraham Lincoln’s son, Tad, begged his father to spare his new friend.

The two birds were plucked from a presidential flock of 30 turkeys. And with names like Corn and Cob, where else could they have been raised but in Iowa!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 25th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. 

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST:

And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Part 2 of Paradise Lost and Restored. 

Yesterday, we met three families from Paradise, California. It’s a town of 26,000 about 90 minutes north of Sacramento. 

Today, WORLD’s Sarah Schweinsberg returns with more of her story about the fire that devastated the tight-knit town.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: For Paradise resident Tanya Ross-Harp, November 8th started like any other day. At 6:30 in the morning she went outside to see how her new rose bushes were doing.

TANYA ROSS-HARP: So I went out to check on them. And I looked up and saw the first plume of smoke. It looked pretty far away. 

Fires in California aren’t uncommon, so Tanya thought there’s nothing to worry about. So the family went about their normal routine. At 7:30 a.m. Tanya took some of their six children to school.  

TANYA ROSS-HARP: It was getting smoky. And there were some big, like pieces of ash and everything, but at that point, it was sort of: “Okay, this is different.” But as far as we knew the fire was not in town. 

What no one in Paradise knew at the time was the fire was growing, and moving fast. 

At 6:15 a.m. that morning, power company PG&E reported an outage about 7 miles northeast of Paradise. 

Fourteen minutes later, one of those power lines just off the Camp Creek Road sparked… catching the grass and trees around it on fire. Dispatchers sent out a call to firefighters. 

DISPATCHER: Looking across under the high tension power lines, there’s a possible powerline hazard….

The dry forests and high winds fed the fire. It spread quickly. At some points, the blaze grew by as much as a football field every second. And the wind pushed it toward Paradise. 

Tomilee Deatherage went to leave for work at 7:30. The sky was orange to the east. She called a friend to find out if this fire was serious.  

DEATHERAGE: And he said it’s far away, so it’s 20 miles, don’t worry about it.

So Deatherage dropped her son off at his golf course job. And she was about to head down to Chico for work when she pulled up next to a city worker.

DEATHERAGE: She had a window down and I said, “Hey, I need to know the truth. Do I need to go home and get my cat?” And she said, “Yes, get up and get your cat, and do it as fast as you can.”

So Deatherage drove back up to her house. Now, the sky was getting dark with an eerie, orange glow. 

DEATHERAGE: I literally parked the car, and I run upstairs to get the carrier for the cat and run back down and put the cat in it… 

Then her mom called. She said Tomilee’s son, Spencer, was worried because the golf course was on the eastern side of town—closer to the approaching fire. Tomilee had to go get him. She didn’t have time to pack up anything. 

DEATHERAGE: I don’t even have a minute because if one minute makes a difference and I get there and it’s too late, I will never never ever forgive myself for the time I took (voice breaks).

Tomilee Deatherage left with her cat and the clothes on her back. As she tried to drive across town to her son…people were starting to panic. 

DEATHERAGE: It’s dark. The trees are lighting up so fast. People were running the lights because they were seeing the trees on fire. And so I just became really aggressive because it’s what you have to do. 

But traffic still wasn’t moving fast enough. So Tomilee’s husband called Spencer. He told him to take any vehicle…even a golf cart and get out of there. Spencer climbed into his boss’s car and drove to Chico. 

DEATHAREDGE: He just said Mom, there were walls of fire. In my mind I’m like, you know you don’t even have your license! I’m so thankful you made it to the bottom.

At 8:30 a.m., Donnie Harp decided to go pick the kids back up from school. When they got home, the family flew into action. At 9:17, Butte County ordered everyone in Paradise to evacuate.

Within an hour, the family packed as many belongings they could into two vehicles. Three kids jumped in with Donnie and the other three with Tanya. 

But 26,000 people were all trying to evacuate at once. Traffic was bumper to bumper—inching, crawling along. 

It took two hours for Tomilee Deatherage to drive less than one mile. 

DEATHERAGE: The smoke was getting really bad at that point… I was trying to figure out how to shut the vents on my car. 

And there was another problem. She had started the day with half a tank of gas. But all the idling in traffic had run her down to less than an eighth of a tank. And she still had at least 10 miles to go. 

She pulled up next to a gas station and saw her chance. 

DEATHERAGE: So I’m getting gas and there’s other people that don’t have money that are trying to get gas. And then I beg somebody to let me back out onto the Skyway. So I get back out into the traffic. 

As the Harp family sat in traffic, they started hearing explosions. Propane tanks on grills overheating and bursting. 

TANYA ROSS-HARP: From that moment on, I didn’t know if we were going to make it out of town. Being stuck and not knowing is–it’s tough.

Eventually, the Harps pulled their two vehicles onto the Skyway, the main four-lane highway leaving town. As they neared the edge of Paradise, Tanya looked to her right. She saw a telephone poll in gulfed in flames. 

TANYA ROSS-HARP: And I heard a crack. And I knew that that telephone pole was going down and it was directly to the side of me.

In the vehicle ahead, Christian and Donnie Harp also noticed the burning telephone pole. Suddenly, Donnie and Christian saw Tanya’s car lunge forward onto the shoulder of the road. Tanya moved her Yukon just in time. 

TANYA ROSS-HARP: And the poll just barely nicked the back of the Yukon.

Down in Chico, authorities closed uphill traffic to Paradise. That meant cars leaving Paradise could drive in all four lanes of the Skyway. Donnie Harp says those extra lanes saved many lives that day because even with them, traffic inched along. 

DONNIE HARP: When we started heading down, that uphill lane, the flames were blowing, and getting real close to the truck. It was so hot. People’s houses burning, literally everything else was just black.

That’s when Donnie had a stark realization.

DONNIE HARP: The whole trip, I was looking at my mirror, that’s my wife behind me. Is my wife behind me? And all of a sudden the Lord revealed to me right there, that if Tanya stopped, I couldn’t. And realizing that I had three of our six kids with me. If she stopped, I had to keep going. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schwiensberg in Paradise, California.

REICHARD: Tomorrow, the conclusion to Sarah’s story as three families come to terms with loss, and restoration.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 25th. Day before Thanksgiving! Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Well, you don’t have to wait to catch a Black Friday bargain, you can do it now.

You’ve heard us talk about WORLD Watch, our video current events programs designed for teens. 

If you’re looking for a gift idea or maybe you’d like this resource for your family, we have some pretty great news.

REICHARD: We do!

There’s a Black Friday discount that cuts the program cost in half. That’s $40 for an entire year of current events videos, one for every weekday. 

Go to worldwatch.news to claim this deal. It runs right now through Monday.

EICHER: All right, well Cal Thomas has some thoughts on the very difficult burden of proof the Trump team has if it’s to have any hope of reversing the result of the presidential election.

CAL THOMAS, COMMENTATOR: The Trump legal team’s move over the weekend to distance itself from attorney Sidney Powell is a major blow to the president’s attempt to win a second term.

Powell’s 2014 book about alleged corruption at the Department of Justice, along with her legal work for former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, made her a darling of conservatives. But her assertions that Chinese communists, rigged voting machines, and foreign money defeated President Trump lack as much credibility as Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s claim in the 1950s that communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department.

Powell says she kept evidence of voter fraud secret for fear of retaliation against the more than 200 poll workers and poll watchers who allegedly witnessed ballot tampering. She says some of them might have to be placed in witness protection! Along with allegations of communist interference, it became too bizarre even for the Trump campaign.

Numerous charges of voter fraud have surfaced over the years, though none substantially proven. Some believe that’s how Lyndon Johnson stole a Texas Senate seat in 1948. LBJ had first run for the Senate in 1941. He lost by about 1,300 votes and blamed voter fraud. He ran again in 1948. On election night in the Democrat Primary runoff against former Texas Governor Coke Stevenson, it appeared LBJ had lost.

Then, as if out of a magician’s hat, someone “discovered” a box of uncounted ballots in the south Texas town of Alice. By the end of that week, LBJ had “won” by 87 votes, earning him the title “Landslide Lyndon.” Each side accused the other of voter fraud.

Allegations of voter fraud also plagued the 1960 presidential race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Out of 68 million ballots cast (roughly half the number in the Trump-Biden race) Kennedy won by a little more than 100,000 votes. The controversy arose over the Chicago Mafia and the corrupt mayor of the city, Richard J. Daley. They were accused of providing the necessary number of votes for Kennedy to prevail in Cook County and thus the entire state and nation.

Then there was the 2006 Minnesota Senate race between incumbent Norm Coleman and comedian Al Franken. Franken “won” after numerous ballot recounts that stopped when he acquired enough votes to be declared the winner—by 312 votes.

The most recent election presents a much higher mountain for President Trump to climb. His attorneys promise to reveal their evidence of voter fraud this week. We’ll soon see if it’s credible and can persuade new judges.

Will the Supreme Court intervene, if asked, as they did in a case involving only a few hundred votes in Florida in the 2000 presidential contest? I’m doubtful, but in this strange and unpredictable year anything seems possible.

I’m Cal Thomas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Extremism in Europe. We’ll tell you how leaders are rethinking their response to terror.

And, the final installment of our report on recovery in Paradise, California.

That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

I hope you’ll have a great rest of the day. We’ll talk to you tomorrow!

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