Elon Musk faces possible criminal charges over $1 million voter lottery

Last night, the clearest warning came from the images Trump chose to share and the violence his government keeps asking Americans to accept. He presented himself beside Xi Jinping as though authoritarian power is the company he wants America to keep, while families here at home are grieving ICE killings, democratic allies are learning to treat the United States as a threat, and institutions from the Senate to a Wisconsin elections commission are being forced to hold the line where the federal government will not.

Based on the events of 7-14-2026

The Breakdown:

* Donald Trump posted three images with Chinese President Xi Jinping at 7:57 p.m., presenting himself beside one of the world's most powerful authoritarian leaders.

* One black-and-white image showed Trump standing behind Xi, looking diminished while Xi appeared confident and in control.

* The images followed another post showing an altered Oval Office scene with Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela covered by the American flag.

* That altered map mocked Canada and Greenland while threatening Cuba and Venezuela with the symbolism of American territorial conquest.

* Trump's public admiration for Xi fits a longer pattern that includes Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Viktor Orban.

* Xi's government crushed democratic movements in Hong Kong, targeted ethnic minorities through internment camps, and built a vast surveillance state.

* Democratic allies have already begun treating the United States as a danger to manage, not a reliable partner.

* Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen rebuked Trump, while French President Emmanuel Macron warned Europe that America could betray Ukraine.

* NATO leaders have had to plan around the possibility that the American president is no longer acting in the interest of the democratic world.

* The episode unfolded alongside reports of ICE killings, grieving families, detention conditions, and official statements insisting agents had no choice.

* ICE has become a domestic enforcement arm operating with unmarked vehicles, unidentified agents, no body cameras, and little meaningful accountability.

* Historical authoritarian movements often built forces loyal to the leader instead of the constitution, beginning with vulnerable communities before expanding outward.

* Senate Democrats blocked the $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act in a 50 to 46 vote, denying the 60 votes needed to advance it.

* Chuck Schumer said Trump started a war without authorization, without a strategy, and without an exit.

* Chris Murphy described the defense bill as an authorization for a war the country does not want.

* Democrats used the NDAA vote to force a reckoning after the administration ignored repeated war powers resolutions.

* In Wisconsin, a bipartisan elections commission voted 5 to 1 to find probable cause that Elon Musk violated state election bribery laws.

* Musk's America PAC offered million-dollar prizes during the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race while spending more than $20 million to influence the contest.

* America PAC's own director admitted recipients were vetted for their suitability as spokespeople, undercutting the claim that ordinary voters were randomly rewarded.

* The Brown County District Attorney now has 40 days to decide whether to bring charges tied to a rigged lottery disguised as democratic participation.

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm Heather Tlaney Reese, and you're listening to Hope for America, where every day I bring you the truth about our politics, our country, and the forces trying to destroy them. Together, we cut through the noise, expose the lies, and stay focused on what really matters, fighting for the survival of our country. At 7.57 p.m. last night, Donald Trump shared three images back to back in the same minute that said more about the future of the United States than any speech he could have given. In all three, he stood beside Chinese President Xi Jinping. In the first, they walked shoulder to shoulder down a ceremonial red carpet, presented as equals. In the second, Xi and Trump both appeared composed, confident, and comfortable, standing together before an arch in the background, projecting a private moment shared between friends. And the third was unlike the others and the most concerning of them all. In it, Donald Trump stands behind Xi in the black and white photo with his face drooping and confusion in his eyes. He looks diminished. Meanwhile, Gi is radiating power and energy. He's smiling, he looks sharp, he looks like a leader in control. It was an odd way to flatter Gi, if that was his intent, or possibly Trump didn't see it that way. Maybe the impairments he is experiencing make him believe he too looks powerful in the picture. But the photographs themselves almost don't matter. They could have been smiling together over dinner, playing golf, or shaking hands at a summit, and the conclusion would have been exactly the same. What mattered wasn't the composition of the photos, it was what they represented. The president of the United States once again chose to publicly align himself with one of the world's most powerful authoritarian leaders while continuing to alienate the democratic alliances and allies who have stood beside America for generations. Because earlier today, he also shared a different type of image. One with him seated at his desk in the Oval Office, with European leaders who used to be our closest allies seated in front of them. The image is from 2025, but it had been altered to once again antagonize some of our closest allies. He mocked Canada, taunted Greenland, and threatened Cuba and Venezuela by replacing the original display in the picture with a map showing Canada, Greenland, Cuba, and Venezuela all covered by an American flag as if it were American territory. He posted this image with the American flag draped over land that does not belong to us to once again test the waters to see how far he can push threats of military action and territorial conquest before someone finally makes him stop. Piece by piece, Donald Trump is reshaping what the United States represents to the rest of the world. For 250 years, despite all of our flaws and all of our failures, America was at least supposed to stand on the side of democracy against authoritarianism. Last night, that's no longer true. For the first time in our history, the United States is on the wrong side of history. We're no longer the country that eventually comes to help or the country that was always working to be better. We're becoming the country standing beside the dictators. Nothing he posted was accidental. And it was not a diplomatic strategy being played out over a timeline that we cannot see. This is who he is. This is who he has always been. He praised Vladimir Putin while Russia bombed civilians in Ukraine. He exchanged letters with Kim Jong-un and told the world they fell in love. He called Viktor Orban a true friend and a winner while Orban was dismantling press freedom and consolidating power across Hungary, which didn't work out well for him. He also called Xi Jinping one of the world's great leaders. And last night, three photographs posted in that same minute showed the president of the United States beside the leader of a country that crushed democratic movements in Hong Kong, targeted an entire ethnic minority into internment camps, and built the most advanced surveillance state in human history. These are not random friendships. These are the men the president of the United States chooses to align himself with, the men he admires, the men he wants standing beside him when the world is watching. It's the men he wants history to remember him alongside. Donald Trump doesn't fill his social media feeds with carefully staged photographs of himself alongside the leaders of thriving democracies. He doesn't post black and white legacy portraits with the people defending democratic institutions or protecting a free press. He posts them with the dictators, the authoritarians, the fascists. And there is a reason for that. Democratic leaders increasingly want nothing to do with him. They see exactly who he is. They see what many Americans are only beginning to recognize. They know he does not see authoritarianism as something to resist. He sees it as something to emulate. The democratic world has already made its assessment. Danish Prime Minister Met Frederickson has openly rebuked him. French president Emmanuel Macron warned European allies that the United States could betray Ukraine. NATO leaders had to strategize about how to protect their countries from an American president they no longer believe is acting in the interest of the democratic world. They are not treating us as a partner anymore. They are treating us as a threat to manage because we have become one. And while Donald Trump was posting those photographs last night, the rest of us are still trying to process yet another series of ICE killings. Another family grieving, another community searching for answers, another round of official statements insisting the agents had no choice. Another set of names that most Americans will never hear because the news cycle has already moved on. This has become the rhythm of our country. Violence, denial, forgetting. And then it happens again. Yesterday I had one of those moments where I genuinely couldn't catch my breath. I was reading about the latest ICE killings and thinking about the victims, their families, and the people still being held in inhumane conditions inside detention centers. And for a moment the weight of it all became almost unbearable. I allowed myself to stop thinking like a writer, gathering facts, and started thinking only like an American trying to understand what we've become. Because this is happening on our watch in our country. Our government is killing people who were simply on their way to work. People who weren't even the ones they were looking for. Not that that makes it any better. This families are waking up to phone calls that will change the rest of their lives forever. And while all of that grief was unfolding, the president of the United States spent his evening posting glamour shots with one of the world's most powerful dictators or authoritarians, whatever you want to call him. I know I'm not the only one carrying this feeling. I know so many of us are struggling to reconcile the country we believed we were with with the country we're becoming. Not because America has always gotten it right. It hasn't. We built this nation on slavery. We imprisoned Japanese Americans in internment camps. We have committed atrocities against Native Americans. We've looked away during genocides and too often arrived far too late when the world needed us. But despite all of that, I still believed we were a country trying, however imperfectly, to move towards something better, towards more freedom, more democracy, and more justice. That's why this feels different. That's why this moment feels different. Not because all of us chose this, because we didn't. Millions of Americans are fighting against it every single day. But it is still our country. And for the first time in my lifetime, I find myself looking at the United States the way I've often so looked at other countries throughout history, wondering how ordinary people lived through something like this while feeling powerless to stop it. How so many stood by and let it happen. Every authoritarian regime in modern history has eventually built a force loyal not to the Constitution but to the leader. A force that operates outside normal laws, answers to no independent authority, and uses violence to enforce compliance. In Nazi Germany, it was the SA and later the SS, and then we had the brown shirts. Haiti had their own version of it. In Iran, under the Shah, it was the Savak. In Romania, it was Czechescu's security. The pattern never changes. The force always begins by targeting the most vulnerable, the people with the least power to fight back. And once the public tolerates that, it expands to anyone who resists. That is what ICE has become under Donald Trump, not an immigration agency, a domestic enforcement arm that operates without body cameras, conducts raids and unmarked vehicles with agents who do not identify themselves, kills people who were not even its targets, and pressures witnesses to leave the country. And when it is challenged, the government lies, deflects, and blames others for the lack of oversight it never wanted in the first place. We can't let ourselves think, even for a moment, that what is happening is just confusion or incompetence. This isn't just a man with cognitive decline or someone simply being manipulated by his enablers. And it isn't ours or our country. It isn't the side of democracy, and it isn't the side of our allies. It isn't the side of the people risking their lives to defend freedom. He has chosen the side of dictators, the authoritarians, and the strongmen. The men who imprison dissenters, silence journalists, crush opposition movements, and rule through fear. Those are the leaders he admires. Those are the leaders he wants standing beside him. Those are the leaders he believes history should remember him with. But his choice doesn't have to be our choice because his dreams of unchecked authoritarian power are meeting more roadblocks than he bargained for. Yesterday, Senate Democrats blocked the 1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act. That bill has passed every single year for more than six decades. It is one of the most consistently bipartisan pieces of legislation in American history. Yesterday, Democrats broke from that tradition because the situation demanded it. The vote was 50 to 46. It fell short of the 60 needed to advance. The bill could still pass in some form later in the process, but what happened yesterday has never happened before. In the 66 years the bill has existed, no Senate has ever failed to advance it to debate. Democrats did not kill the NDAA. They used the only leverage they had to force a reckoning over a war the president never asked them to authorize. Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer was direct. He said Trump started this war without authorization, without a strategy, and without an exit. Senator Chris Murphy called it what it is, an authorization for a war nobody in this country wants. Democrats also objected to provisions that would deepen the integration of the United States and Israeli militaries without debate, and to the administration's push to balloon military spending while programs that serve American families are being gutted. Congress has voted multiple times on war powers resolutions to halt hostilities. The administration has ignored everyone, so yesterday Democrats used the only tool powerful enough to force the question. They did not write a letter, they did not issue a statement, they voted, and the line held. And in Wisconsin, a bipartisan election commission voted five to one to find probable cause that Elon Musk violated state election bribery laws during the 2025 Supreme Court race. Wisconsin law bans offering anything of value exceeding $1 to induce someone to vote. Musk and his America Pack dangled million-dollar prizes in front of ordinary voters who signed a petition and participated in the election. He showed up in Green Bay handing out giant novelty checks on stage and spent more than $20 million trying to flip the court in what became the most expensive judicial election in American history. The candidate he backed lost by 10 points. It didn't work. But the winners were never chosen at random. America PAC's own director admitted under oath in a separate case that the recipients were vetted and selected based on their, and I quote, suitability to be spokespeople. One of the Wisconsin winners was the chairman of the state's College Republicans with ties to multiple campaigns and to Turning Point USA. He was not a lucky voter. He was a Republican operative handed a million dollars on stage. The ordinary people who signed up, believing they had a real chance, got nothing but their personal information harvested. A class action lawsuit is now underway. A federal judge has ordered Musk to testify under oath, and the Brown County District Attorney has 40 days to decide whether to bring criminal charges against the richest man on the planet for trying to buy an American election with a rigged lottery disguised as democracy. And we need to remember that referral did not come from Congress or from a federal court. It came from a bipartisan state commission doing exactly what the founders built state level institutions to do when the federal systems fail. We are on the wrong side of history now. We are not on the point of no return, though. Trump has made his choice, but he does not get to make ours. Across this country, in ways both large and small, people are deciding that his version of America is not theirs. He will be remembered for the dictators he embraced. We will be remembered for what we did to stop him. And that is why I self hope for America and you should too. And remember, no matter how dark the days get, I will be here every single day. And together we will always find hope for America.