On a deep-dive episode of The Excerpt podcast (first released on October 28, 2024): It was a busy penultimate weekend on the campaign trail for Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. USA TODAY Senior National Political Correspondent Sarah D. Wire discusses what our reporters found speaking with election workers in swing states around the country. USA TODAY National Correspondent Will Carless discusses whether we should be worried about cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure. The World Series shifts to New York.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I’m Taylor Wilson, and today is Monday, October 28th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today we check in after busy weekends for Trump and Harris. Plus, we hear about how election workers are coping in the final stretch and how worried should we be about cyberattacks on US infrastructure.
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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump headlined a hometown rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden last night. The rally featured Elon Musk, Hulk Hogan, and UFC CEO Dana White, but the night was marked by racist tropes. Wormabacks, including comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by the stage name Kill Tony, called Puerto Rico, a floating island of garbage. Trump’s campaign said yesterday that it does not share the views of Hinchcliffe on Puerto Rico. Trump later repeated his plans to launch what he called the largest deportation program in American history and referred to his opponent, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, as a low-IQ individual.
Elsewhere, Kamala Harris made a series of campaign stops in the Philadelphia area yesterday, trying to make a final push to voters in a major battleground state. That stop came after former First Lady Michelle Obama on Saturday opened for Harris in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She said that with Trump, there’s no honesty, decency, or morals. You can read more about a busy penultimate weekend on the campaign trail for both candidates on usatoday.com.
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As election workers face increasing hostility, some USA TODAY reporters spent time with them on the ground in swing states around the country. I spoke with USA TODAY senior national political correspondent, Sarah D. Wire, about the county she visited in Pennsylvania and some of what we learned nationwide.
Sarah, thank you for making some time today.
Sarah D. Wire:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So let’s just start with this. Really, how has this once monotonous job-working elections become dangerous in recent months? In recent times?
Sarah D. Wire:
Election workers are passionate about getting this right. They’re drawn to the minutiae, the details, and they’re used to being largely ignored. I spoke to an election worker this morning who said when he started in 1985, he would never have seen someone come observe the elections. And now they’re expecting massive crowds on election night and everyone’s going to have to go through a [inaudible 00:02:27], especially since 2020, we’ve seen more threats, they’ve seen more acts of physical violence, and they’re not used to this level of attention.
Taylor Wilson:
So I know Sarah, you visited Chester County, Pennsylvania, for this story. Just tell us a little bit about Chester County, and what was your experience like visiting with election workers and really witnessing this election process there?
Sarah D. Wire:
It’s an adorable little town. I got stuck behind the school bus and was just enjoying watching all the kids wander off. But Pennsylvania is such a swing state, and it was amazing driving down the road, and you would see a Kamala Harris sign on one side and a Trump sign on the other. And it was just over and over and over through town. So I went to what’s called logic and accuracy testing, and this is where they actually go through, and they test every single part of the election machines. The machines that you run your ballot through, at the very end. The workers can’t even use ink that can be recorded by the machines. They have to use a purple ink. They’re all wearing special uniforms, and when they’re done, they actually lock the machines with a zip tie so that they can’t be tampered with again.
Taylor Wilson:
And Sarah, your colleague, visited Western North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene and all of the devastation that it brought. What did we learn about election workers in that state, and really, what complications did this storm cause just weeks before the election?
Sarah D. Wire:
They’re facing misinformation as well as displaced voters and displaced poll workers. But what they’re finding is that people are still turning out in droves. They’re coming out to vote, and they’re coming out to help with the polls. The Red Cross is there setting up polling locations under tents, and they’re really confident that they’re going to be able to turn out an election held to the same standards that it would be if they didn’t have the hurricane damage.
Taylor Wilson:
And Maricopa County in Arizona has become, I would say, almost a household name nationally at this point after being a big player in recent elections. What challenges do election workers face there, and how are they meeting them?
Sarah D. Wire:
They have so many eyes watching them because, like you said, they’ve become a national name, and they are being held to exacting standards. The election integrity groups in Arizona are very alert, very involved, and they are going to be double-checking every single little thing that could go wrong. And so far they are really rising to the occasion. The workers have been heavily trained on what to do and what to not do, and the election officials are holding themselves to this high standard, and it seems like so far they’re doing a great job. The biggest thing they’re worried about is that they have no room to mess up. There is a lot that election officials cannot control water main breaks, someplace runs out of ballots. All of that could be misconstrued as election interference when actually it’s just normal hiccups that happen everywhere across the country, and they know that there’s very little forgiveness if they get something wrong.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Sarah D. Wire covers national politics for USA TODAY. Listeners can find a link to this story in today’s show notes. Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah D. Wire:
Thanks for having me.
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Taylor Wilson:
Cyberattacks on critical US infrastructure keep happening, so how worried should we be? I spoke with USA TODAY national correspondent Will Carless to find out what the experts are saying. Will, I always appreciate you hopping on.
Will, I always appreciate you hopping on.
Will Carless:
It’s always a pleasure. Thanks.
Taylor Wilson:
So Will, let’s just start with the 2021 attack on the Colonial gas pipeline. Can you refresh us on what happened here?
Will Carless:
Yeah, this was a cyberattack that affected almost half of all fuel consumed on the East Coast. So you might remember the footage of the long lines of people waiting for gas. I mean, there’s so much going on that it’s easy to forget. But yeah, back in 2021, middle of COVID, and there was no gas as well. It was a pretty big deal.
Taylor Wilson:
And more recently, we’ve heard about Salt Typhoon. What exactly is this incident, and what are some other recent attacks on US infrastructure?
Will Carless:
Well, part of the problem here is that we don’t really know exactly what this incident was about. I mean, there’s been some information that’s come out through unnamed sources, through some journalism, but there’s been no sort of real report or postmortem on that attack. But the basics are that it impacted a telecom company, particularly Verizon, and that there was some sort of attack looking at the systems that track wiretaps, and particularly, what we think it was looking at, wiretaps of Chinese nationals and investigations into spying. So this is like counterespionage or counter counterespionage, I guess. But it’s pretty shrouded in mystery. We don’t really know too much about it yet.
Taylor Wilson:
And well, incidents like these, I mean, are they on the rise? Are they signs of things to come? What do the experts say on this?
Will Carless:
Well, hard to say whether they’re on the rise. There’s certainly been an uptick in the last few years, but the vast majority of these cyberattacks and cyber infiltrations go unnoticed or at least unreported, according to the experts. But the general consensus is that this front in the global warfare has really been heating up. And particularly when you look at cyberattacks focused on critical infrastructure, things like water, gas, electricity, there’s been an increased focus on our national critical infrastructure and the resulting problems to our critical security. And so that’s really been the target of a lot of these attacks in the last couple of years.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, when people hear cyberattack, cyberwarfare, I think they often don’t entirely know what to picture. Really, what’s the goal of most of this kind of cyber warfare that we’re talking about?
Will Carless:
Let’s zoom out a second. There’s a distinction between government-sanctioned cyber intelligence and actual cyber warfare, a nation-state against nation-state that’s distinct to what we often think of as cyberattacks, which are things like hacks that then seek to ransom information or ransom data to make money. That’s criminal enterprises. Now, in some cases, there are connections to governments too, but what we really looked at in this story was cyber warfare.
And often the real goal is just to kind of get inside systems, understand systems, and then really just kind of point out that, “Look, we can make a difference. We can shut things down; we can disrupt your population, and so be careful how you tread.” That’s how it was described to me by numerous experts in this world. But it’s very complicated; there’s obviously a lot of counterintelligence work that goes on to try and limit the extent of these attacks, but as the years have progressed and as these things have become ever more convoluted and more complicated, there’s just more and more of these attacks taking place, and it’s a fascinating kind of front in the global kind of proxy wars that are going on all the time.
Taylor Wilson:
And Will, in terms of the US side of this coin, I’m curious really, does the US carry out its own versions of these types of attacks, and really, just going forward, how prepared is America for this kind of, I guess, new frontier?
Will Carless:
On the first of those two, I will say almost every expert that I talk to, many of whom, it should be said, work within the security apparatus of this country, were extremely tight-lipped about this. We couldn’t possibly tell you what America does overseas, but if you think back to the reporting that was aided by Edward Snowden, the famous whistleblower, it’s very clear that we are doing this sort of cyber espionage against our enemies and that we are very, very good at it and very effective at it. So there’s no doubt that there is sort of an arms race or a Cold War, like, pick your analogy. We are definitely involved in this stuff too; we’re just a lot more tight-lipped about it. And also incidentally, people who tend to be connected to the US intelligence and security apparatus will tell you, “But we do it abiding by all the international laws,” which some people would be very skeptical about.
As to the second part of your question, how prepared are we? Again, it’s one of those sort of unknowable things. I mean, let’s say that there is a major geopolitical conflict next year. Let’s say America goes to war with China. Only then would we really understand the true extent of the hacking that’s gone on and the true extent of the infiltration and the disruption that could follow. That’s what was described to me, this kind of global game of espionage and brinksmanship that nobody really has a full handle on and that won’t really be revealed until it’s crunch time and these countries decide to really let loose what they’ve got in our systems. And that should be a very interesting time for everyone. Hopefully it never happens, but certainly there’s a lot of stuff out there.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, new world. Will Carless covers extremism and emerging issues for USA TODAY. Thank you, Will.
Will Carless:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
The World Series rolls on tonight with game three in New York. It’s been a happier series for the Dodgers than the Yankees so far, up two games to nothing. They won game one Friday night with a walk-off Grand Slam and followed it up with another nail-biter win in game two in Los Angeles Saturday. Now as the series shifts to New York for at least two games, the Yankees will hope playing at home can help them get back in the series. All eyes, meanwhile, have been on the injury status of Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani. Manager Dave Roberts said last night that he expects Ohtani to play if the slugger and leadoff hitter can tolerate the discomfort two days after suffering a shoulder injury. For more from the World Series, you can follow along with USA TODAY Sports.
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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you’re on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I’m Taylor Wilson, and I’ll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
