Politics and views in the United States.

Donald Trump blames 'the enemy within' for Israeli intelligence leak. Experts feel Elon Musk's voter sweepstakes crossed a line, and voting rights groups try to get young people more engaged.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to 2024 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

They leaked all the information about the way that Israel's going to fight and how they're going to fight and where they're going to go.

At a roundtable for Latino voters, former President Donald Trump says the enemy within is responsible for leaking plans about a possible Israeli attack on Iran.

The FBI is investigating how the military details ended up on an Iranian-linked Telegram account and hasn't said if this was a leak or a hack.

The former president has repeatedly called political rivals the enemy within and threatened to use military force against them.

Several states are seeing heavy early voting, which may suggest a high turnout election.

In Texas, a controversial abortion ban, along with a surprisingly competitive Senate race, might be a reason.

A new survey there finds that under the new abortion law, three-quarters of state doctors say they feel they can't practice medicine according to best practices, and nearly two-thirds fear legal repercussions if they do.

Dr. Donna LaCarson with Comprehensive Women's Health Care in Houston says it's creating confusion.

"How sick does a woman have to be?

How close to death does she have to be to be confident that the state will deem that the intervention was warranted?

There's just really no clarity around it."

Some election lawyers say Elon Musk's daily $1 million giveaway to registered swing state voters who sign a conservative petition may be illegally encouraging them to turn out.

David Becker with the Center for Election Innovation and Research says it's a federal crime to pay for registering or voting.

"This is clearly designed to inspire registration.

It was even done in such a way as to coincide with the Pennsylvania voter registration deadline, for instance.

And clearly it's designed to only affect political outcomes in seven states."

National groups some student-led are trying to increase young people's political engagement.

Generation Citizens Vote 16 USA campaign's Luan Allen says they're pushing to lower the voting age to 16 in some states.

"If you vote in one election, you're much more likely to vote in another.

And if we start that early, that percentage goes up."

The Center for Voters Initiative in Action is a youth-led group working with congressional lawmakers to pass the High School Voter Empowerment Act, which would designate schools as voter registration agencies and reimburse them for the cost.

Yeun Park is with the CVIA.

"The primary purpose is to increase civic engagement activities across high schools nationwide and receive funding for it to make these kinds of things accessible and provided for all high schools."

If voters there approve a ballot measure, Oregon would join a growing number of states that use ranked choice voting.

Blair Bobier with Oregon Ranked Choice Voting says it makes each ballot more effective and forces campaigns to be more moderate and inclusive.

"Candidates have to campaign to a broader section of the community rather than just focus on a very narrow band of ardent supporters."

After Trump cooked french fries and handed out food to vetted supporters, McDonald's issued a statement that it doesn't endorse political candidates.

The company says it doesn't endorse candidates but contributes to both parties.

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

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.