Politics and views in the United States.

Special prosecutors say Trump "resorted to crimes" after losing the 2020 election, Democrats say Project 2025 threatens reproductive freedom, and voters in several states consider nonpartisan primary elections.

TRANSCRIPT

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

We will never give up.

We will never concede.

It doesn't happen.

You don't concede when there's death involved.

Former President Donald Trump denying he lost re-election on January 6, 2021.

A new filing in Trump's federal election subversion case says he resorted to crimes to stay in office.

Federal counsel Jack Smith uses a detailed narrative to argue Trump's actions were those of a candidate, not a president, and so not entitled to immunity.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is favored to win re-election, but polls show Democratic Congressman Colin Allred closing in.

When asked if he'll accept the results of that race, Cruz says it's too soon to tell.

The media game of swear on a stack of Bibles you will accept the results no matter what is kind of silly because nobody would do that if there's illegality, you should want the law followed.

Republican strategists say Democrats have long hoped demographic trends would help flip Texas but come up short, as when then El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke lost to Cruz in 2018.

But other Republican strategists are sounding alarms about inadequate battleground get-out-the-vote efforts.

Trump allies who took over the RNC outsourced the door knocking and phone banking traditionally done by the party to outside PACs.

Party officials say it's still happening, just in a more targeted way.

Massachusetts Progressive Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is sharply attacking Project 2025.

She says the right-wing roadmap for a second Trump term would eliminate loan forgiveness for public workers, leaving 4 million teachers, nurses, and first responders with hundreds of billions in student debt.

And she says it could mean government monitoring of pregnancies and menstrual periods.

So stopping Project 2025 is as much about protecting our fundamental freedoms and our democracy as it is about advancing workers' justice.

A judge in Georgia has struck down the state's six-week abortion ban and says giving district attorneys access to medical records violates Georgians' right to privacy.

Quajalen Jackson, with the Feminist Women's Health Center in Atlanta, says the fight's not over.

The state of Georgia has an opportunity to stand for its citizens, to stand on behalf of our lives.

Meanwhile, Trump now says he would veto a federal abortion ban after having refused to take a position.

South Dakota voters will soon decide if the state's primary election will now be nonpartisan.

Advocates say that would improve turnout in a state where fewer than one in five voters cast primary ballots.

Joe Kirby, chairman of South Dakota Open Primaries, says it would move politics to the middle.

Candidates would change their messaging so that they would appeal to all voters in the state instead of appealing to the partisan few that show up for our primary elections.

I'm Katherine Carley for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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