Politics and views in the United States

President Donald Trump calls for Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola to be prosecuted, college students look to boost election turnout of their peers, and Big Tech takes center stage in Minnesota Senate race.

Transcript

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

They said they didn't do it and we caught them cold.

Mary Peltola should resign from the race.

I think she should be prosecuted criminally for what she did.

President Donald Trump is denouncing Alaska Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola for trying to deceive voters.

A New York Times investigation reports Peltola's campaign recruited Dan J. Sullivan Jr. to run in an attempt to lure voters away from incumbent Republican Dan S. Sullivan.

Governor Mike Dunleavy is ordering an investigation into Peltola's campaign, and the Justice Department issued subpoenas as part of its own investigation into the race.

But recruiting candidates to split an opponent's vote, known as ballot stacking, is legal and something both parties have done in Alaska.

Corruption and abuses of power are a flashpoint for voters, but it's uncertain how this October surprise will affect Alaska's Senate race.

But there are greater election interference concerns.

The DOJ is sending 1,000 election monitors to polling places in every state.

And President Donald Trump is offering $1 million for voter fraud tips that lead to convictions.

Mario Cooper with Popular Democracy says this is part of a new brand of politics.

If you're offering a million dollars to find some regular citizen to try to help you cheat and steal an election, That says more about how confident you are in the policies and decisions you've made over the last two years, which have been hurting American people.

This comes as a federal judge is ordering the Trump administration to name every state it demanded to remove specific voters set aside or refuse to issue ballots to since July 1st.

The DOJ also opened a criminal investigation into self-contrived claims California allowed thousands of non-citizens to vote.

Massachusetts college students are making a final push to get more young people to vote in next week's midterm elections.

Only 30 percent of people ages 18 to 24 voted in the 2022 midterms, down from around 40 percent in 2018.

Ian Burns is a campaign coordinator for the New Voters Project and a junior studying environmental science at UMass Lowell.

He says students are asking for help on how to vote in the midterms.

You just turned 18.

You have this capability of making change, so why not do it?

But they just don't have the information or tools yet to be able to do that.

A Tufts University survey finds two-thirds of college students plan to vote in the midterms.

This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled New Hampshire can't use college students' school IDs to verify voters' identities.

Artificial intelligence and big tech are key issues in many elections this year.

Minnesota Senate candidates have ideas of what federal oversight of AI can be.

Some of the state's tech regulations are being challenged in court, including law banning AI-generated nude images.

Lieutenant Governor and U.S. Senate Democratic candidate Peggy Flanagan is hinting at a pause in advanced AI development, citing concerns about chatbots.

When we hear about young people who have died by suicide because of the conversations with these chatbots, I can't even believe this is something where we are still questioning whether they should be regulated.

I'm Edwin J. Viera for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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